


Four Interns Go Into a Lab...

by snack_size



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Bruce/Steve/Tony Bromance, Community: avengerkink, Gen, International Relations with Canadians, M/M, Science Boyfriends, Working at Stark Industries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-24
Updated: 2012-09-12
Packaged: 2017-11-10 16:15:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/468230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snack_size/pseuds/snack_size
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce and Steve finally feels up to studying the Hulk and the super-serum, now that they get Tony/SI's protection from the army and excessively curious SHIELD agents. Tony helps out with these studies FOR SCIENCE. However, Tony still has a lot of other work to do (Iron Man, SI, SHIELD consultant, Pepper, ect.), so he gets them some SI interns to help out when he's gone.</p><p>However, the only interns who aren't completely terrified of working with the Hulk have some...quirks. And while they're earnest, and well meaning, they're irritating, inappropriate, and might be evil geniuses. Fortunately, Steve's been assigned to turn them into professional, functional Stark Industries employees.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> for this kink meme prompt:
> 
>  
> 
> _Bruce and Steve finally feels up to studying the Hulk and the super-serum, now that they get Tony/SI's protection from the army and excessively curious SHIELD agents. Tony helps out with these studies FOR SCIENCE. However, Tony still has a lot of other work to do (Iron Man, SI, SHIELD consultant, Pepper, ect.), so he gets them some SI interns, who happen to be geniuses, to help out when he's gone._
> 
>  
> 
>   _But the interns are all weird: giggly/shy, screwballs, slackers, ect. - basically rather childish and would probably just be dropped from any other internship program even within SI until they got their acts together. Why would Tony risk making Bruce put up with such irritating helpers? Why make Steve deal with them?_
> 
>   _Because these kids are also the ones who aren't afraid of the Hulk, and for all that they are terrible at actually functioning productively in a professional environment, they are genuinely curious about the serum/Hulk themselves and their peaceful applications (i.e. studying the metabolism to fight malnourishment, their healing factors, ect.) rather than trying to recreate the serum itself or search for military applications. While they irritate Bruce in the short run, their treatment of him (basically, completely normally and no issues with the Hulk) is very calming for Bruce and Hulk in the long run. Meanwhile Steve, who doesn't really have anything to do outside of Avengers stuff and so is bored out of his mind and moping, has his hands full trying to whip these immature geniuses into intellectual/professional shape._
> 
>   _Win-win for all, as far as Tony's concerned. Bruce gets treated like a fun, normal person by someone outside the Avengers, Steve is kept busy doing what he does best, and Tony gets new awesome, genius SI employees out of it all._
> 
>   _Bonus points for the lab interns mixing in serious experiments with things like what the Hulk's favorite ice cream is or Steve's refractory period or other things like that._
> 
>   _tl;dr - Tony uses genius but immature SI interns to help Bruce study the Hulk and Steve's super-serum because they are crazy enough to keep Bruce calm and and immature enough to keep Steve busy. (OP!Anon would just like to see creative ways Tony keeps Bruce and Steve happy deep down, even if they seem irritated on the surface.)_

**Prologue**

“Much as I find this fascinating, and important, Bruce - and I do, really, don’t give me that look - I’ve got a lot on the proverbial plate. There’s the suit, which needs to get fixed...and some bullshit Fury wants me to look at for SHIELD, not to mention the board meeting I have to go to and Pepper just pointed out we haven’t been out on a date for a month, which...but, don’t worry, I’ve found a solution!” Tony grinned. 

“I don’t think I’m really that good at helping with _science!_ ” Steve said, giving Tony wide eyes, mostly because he knew how much studying the serum meant to Bruce. He really needed someone capable, not...well, Steve. Yet he’d been dragged into the lab for Tony’s announcement, and he did not understand what kind of productive involvement he could have beyond donating samples.

“Well, not really, no, Captain - what? Honesty is important with friends! - I’m going to tap into one of Stark Industries greatest depositories - or, repositories - of genius, talent, knowledge, capability, all of that stuff-” Bruce arched an eyebrow as Tony waved his hands around - “I’m going to get you both some interns.” 

“Interns?” Steve asked, furrowing his brow. “Both?”

“Interns,” Tony said, manic smile a little too much on the Heath-Ledger-as-joker side of things.

* * * 

**The Interns**

Elodie Laurent frowned at the e-mail - all interns were required to complete a short online quiz, though there was no clear purpose indicated, nor was one explicit from the questions. Penalties were merely promised for those who did not turn theirs in in a timely fashion.

Vagueness and threats, she had learned in her brief tenure at Stark Industries, were never good. There were plenty of stories around the office about how Mr. Stark and his trusted advisors decided who would advance within the company - how Ms. Potts had got her position by correcting Mr. Stark’s accounting error, how the head of biomedical engineering and sort of her direct supervisor had been promoted when Mr. Stark found out that, on her own time, she had invented the glaze for his favorite donuts. And there were also plenty of stories about how people found themselves without jobs.

She rolled her eyes and went through some of the multiple choice questions about work environment - is your work station messy or clean? What sort of music do you listen to? what kinds of hours would you keep if you could design your own schedule? - some ethics questions - what are your opinions on living test subjects? Would you ever consider experimenting on yourself? - to the last few, which were a little more bizarre. But then, she’d be working for Monsanto if she had wanted a standard working environment. They were listed as bonus questions-

Captain America ______  
The Hulk ______

She frowned, for a moment, and then shrugged her shoulders. She wasn’t going to sit here and try and figure out how to outsmart Tony Stark, or the devious assholes in HR who were going to sit and laugh at all the interns’ responses. Might as well be honest. Captain America _has a tight-ass and is also likely a tight-ass,_ she typed in the blank. The Hulk, on the other hand, _probably just needs a hug and some ice cream._ She had always thought the big green guy wasn’t too different from her ex-boyfriend.

* * *

Jack Lee was very, very close to beating his record high on Tetris - his thumb ached, his eyes were almost tearing, and it had been three hours since he had begun, and it was going to be so fucking glorious.

Which was why his lab desk mate decided it would be the perfect time to say, “Jack! Did you turn in your mandatory survey via e-mail? It’s mandatory, and due in five minutes!” 

And there it went. He crumpled his head into his hand for a moment and mourned his achievement, and then looked up at Lin. Jack hadn’t figured out why Lin thought it was his duty to babysit him. “There are penalties if you don’t turn it in on time!”

“Individual, or group?” Jack asked.

Lin’s eyes widened. “It didn’t say! It could be group!” 

Jack sighed. Lin really needed some Xanax, or Ritalin, or something. “OK, OK...” he said, and clicked into his e-mail. The questions were easy enough, and he clicked his way through and then quickly typed in his answer to the bonus ones. “Satisfied?” He only did it so that he wouldn’t have to listen to Lin slowly descend into a panic attack over the thought of being taken off of the plum chemical engineering assignment he was on or that they might not get donuts on Fridays, or whatever.

“You didn’t want to think out your answers to the last questions?” Lin asked. “Craig in mechanical engineering said he thinks that Dr. Banner has an actual lab in this building but I told him there was no way they would risk the safety and security of-” He stopped, to catch a breath, and then said, “-are you even listening to me?”

“Nope,” Jack replied, and grinned at him. 

* * *

Molly Rosenberg completed the survey while she was standing in line at Starbucks, having been consigned to coffee runs for perpetuity after she had set part of the lab on fire - not, really, her fault. Really, it was Dr. Pronger’s fault, for telling her that they were going to start charging her for the next thing that she broke. _Dude!_ she wanted to shout, _I am being paid an intern’s salary and trying to live in New York! Which, if you have not noticed, has recently experienced a bit of a fucking housing shortage._

So, when the test tube with the dry compound that she had been warming broke, she had just swept the glass, the compound, and the rest of the debris into the nearest garbage can. How was she supposed to know it was full of paper towels and some chemical that was flammable and some other things that, really, should be classified as a safety hazard? She should report _them_ to fucking OSHA and see how they liked it. 

“Same?” The barista asked her, as she typed out her responses to the last two questions.

“Yeah,” she said. “Always. Motherfuckers.” 

* * *

Everett Reese sighed the long suffering sigh of the hung-over, and, really, it was three in the afternoon. He should be feeling like a human being again, at this point. He knew, from the glances his colleagues were giving him, that he certainly didn’t look like one. He felt like flipping them off, but that wasn’t going to further endear him. 

He knew from the fact that he had dared order three drinks at happy hour the first week he had started that he had been designated team lush. And that was a problem on so many levels, since, one - nerds, learn to lighten up and, two - did they not realize who they were working for? Ev was pretty sure that the Ironman suit likely had a beer helmet on the inside, though, with Stark’s money, it probably housed Glenlivet. 

And, OK, yes, he wasn’t helping things by being hungover. But it wasn’t every day that your hometown team won the Stanley Cup for the first time, which was what he said to Christy, one of the other interns, when she had given him a disapproving look.

“Isn’t the Stanley Cup for...hockey?” she asked. 

He raised his eyebrows and smiled at her. “Yes,” he said. “And, guess what? Black people do like hockey.” That was definitely going to be brought up at his next review. There was no way to win with these people.

He narrowed his eyes at the last two questions on the survey.

Captain America? _My personal hero!_ he typed. _The man punched Hitler!_ The Hulk? _Great taste in pants. Should get an endorsement deal._

* * *

“So!” Tony said, walking into Melinda Young’s office with the eight responses he had picked, ready to learn all about the bright young minds he thought might be best suited to be Bruce and possibly Steve’s interns. “I’ve got some candidates here, thought you could fill me in so I can make sure we get the right matches...” Melinda smiled at him.

“Ugh...let’s see - Su Yi Feng?” 

“She’s a very hard worker, great reviews, excellent physicist-” Tony held his hand up and put her response face down on the desk. That wouldn’t give Steve anything to work with at all.

“Elodie Laurent?” 

Melinda gave him a tight smile. “She has a...sense of humor, I suppose, though Dr. Gonzalez thinks the mad scientist jokes might not entirely be jokes...also, she’s Canadian.” 

Tony furrowed his brow. “What does that have to do with anything?” he asked, and put her file face up. “Cynthia Ortiz?” 

“Great work ethic-” Face down.

“Jacob Willard?”

“Incredibly dedicated-” Face down. “Mr. Stark? Don’t you think-”

“Jack Lee?”

“He might spend more time playing Tetris than-” Face up for him, then, Tony liked a man with a penchant for old school video games. 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to pick-”

“Everett Reese?” 

“He seems to have a bit of a partying reputation...” Melinda gave a long suffering sigh when his file landed face up. 

“Molly Rosenberg?” 

“She’s mostly become known for her clumsiness and foul mouth - Mr. Stark?”

“Melinda, trust me on this. All these kids are geniuses, right?” Melinda nodded. “But, as we all know, not all geniuses are the same. We are all special little snowflakes. And it’s going to take a special kind of genius to work for Dr. Banner - one who is not going to shit their pants every time he moves towards them, and one who...well, he’s my lab buddy, Mel, I know what he’s looking for.”

“If you’re sure, Mr. Stark,” she said. He nodded. 

“Schedule coffee for them in the small lounge right before my floor on Monday,” Tony said, grinning. “I’ll personally tell them about their new assignment.” 

* * * * 

**First Impressions**

Tony looked at the interns. The interns looked at Tony. 

“So,” he said. “You all have coffee? You all drink coffee?” It had occurred to him, too late, that he wasn’t entirely sure how to deal with graduate students - they were all in their mid-to-late twenties, brilliant, but so, so young. So fresh. So... _don’t think tasty,_ he told himself, and then grimaced.

The interns nodded. “Well,” Tony said, “You’re probably wondering why you’ve been called up here...no, it’s not a personal meet the company figurehead sort of thing, there’s too many of you for that. Rather, you’ve been reassigned to a new project we’re working on that requires...well, a rather specific skill set.” He smiled at them.

The interns looked at him with a mixture of fear and amusement. “We’ve finally managed to, well, dispatch with some unpleasant interlopers and get exclusive rights to study the super soldier serum that was used on Captain America and that Dr. Banner also worked on, and, so, you’re going to be their interns.” 

Three of the intern’s mouths opened and one smirked at him. “JARVIS, can you have Dr. Banner and Captain Rogers come in?” One of the male interns mouthed _holy shit_ to himself, and one of the women began to scratch at the back of her neck. Both of them composed themselves as the door opened and the two men walked in.

Bruce was disheveled - nothing unusual there - and was squinting, presumably from the natural light in the room. Steve was predictably perfect looking. “Here you go, Br- Dr. Banner!” Tony said, waving his hands at the four interns. “Interns!” 

Bruce did not make eye contact with the interns, but rather frowned at Tony. Steve studied the interns with the same gaze he had turned on Tony when they got into their little bitch fight on the Helicarrier. “Great! Interns, introduce yourself, I have...things! Science! And eat the croissants!” Tony quickly made his way out of the room. “JARVIS, check interns off my to do list,” he said.

“Are you certain, sir?” JARVIS asked, and Tony laughed.

“Yes,” he replied.

* * * 

The interns were not, exactly, what Bruce had expected. He had seen plenty of them wandering around the labs, and most of them averted their eyes from him and scurried away. These ones were looking at him, and looking at Steve, and they all had sort of pleasant but awkward expressions on their face.

“I’ll start,” said one of the women. Her accent was thick and almost French. “I’m Elodie Laurent, I’m doing a phD in biochemistry and biophysics at Harvard.” No one said anything. “I’m originally from Montreal. And I’m an Aries.” She gave them all a tight smile. 

“You’re Canadian,” Steve said, and she raised her eyebrows at him and nodded slowly. 

“OK, uhm, hi?” said the next woman. “I’m Molly Rosenberg, in the phD program in chemical engineering at MIT. I’m from Providence, Rhode Island.” She looked off to the side and grimaced. 

“Jack Lee,” said the man standing next to her - though Bruce doubted he was a day over twenty-three, “I’m doing a phD in biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins, and I’m from Tampa.” 

“I’m Everett Reese - Ev,” said the last intern, “I did a masters in nuclear engineering at MIT and now I’m working on a phD in physics there. I’m originally from L.A.” 

Steve looked at Bruce, prodding him to say something. Bruce coughed. “Well, that’s good, uhm, seems like you all have the sort of skills that will be helpful in our project, uhm, I’m, obviously, Dr. Bruce Banner, and this is Captain Rogers-”

“Nice to meet all of you,” Steve said.

“He’s going to be, uhm, working with us?” Bruce said. Steve nodded - Tony had told him his presence would be a great help to Bruce, but Steve wasn’t entirely sure how that was going to work. He didn’t push, though, because for the most of his day - after his time in the gym, and his run, and training - he was very bored. “So, I’ll give you a tour of the lab, and an overview of what we’re doing, and then I guess we’ll get started with, ugh...science.” 

Bruce shuffled through the lab, mumbling about the various equipment and what types of experiments he was working on and a brief overview of the serum. The interns followed behind, obligingly, nodding occasionally. “So...” Bruce said, when he was done. “We should probably get each of you set up with a work station somewhere over there-” he waved his hand in the direction of the empty tables. “You have computers, and stuff?” 

“Everything is property of the departments we were transferred from, Dr. Banner,” said Elodie. 

“Huh,” said Bruce.

“Why don’t you each give me a list of what you need, given what you know about what we’re working on, and I’ll get the appropriate supplies,” Steve said. The interns all blinked at him. Molly gave him a broad smile - a smile Steve knew all too well. _Great,_ he thought. _Nothing like having to deal with an admirer in a professional capacity._

“So, let’s do that,” Bruce said. “And then you can all come over to the Nucleic Acid Extraction System and I’ll talk you through what we’re trying to, ugh, isolate.” 

Steve felt like a first grade teacher as he went to Bruce’s messy desk, found some pieces of paper and pens, and handed them to the interns. He was surprised to find that Elodie was almost as tall as he was when he found himself looking right into her eyes. Her eyebrows were arched again, and he couldn’t help but feel she was slightly unbalanced. Or maybe she was just Canadian. He didn’t have much experience with Canadians besides the one time the Commandos had come across a small, decimated platoon of them in the Netherlands. The Commandos shared their rations and camped in a barn with them for the night. They had seemed to be nice enough. Very polite, even though a war was going on.

* * *

When the interns went home for the day, Steve handed Bruce a large mug of coffee and perched on the only available space on his workstation. “So, that was OK, right?” he asked.

“The one makes me nervous,” Bruce said. “The tall one. She’s too smart for her own good.”

“The same could be said of Tony,” Steve replied, and then understood. He nodded at Bruce. “I mean, to work here - they’re all geniuses, right?” Steve felt awkward asking the question - he didn’t have much in the way of formal education, since he and Bucky had left the orphanage at fifteen to work. 

“Yes,” Bruce said. “The one - Jack - he’s twenty-two, graduated college at eighteen. He’s very confident that he’s intelligent. And then Molly, the other woman, she broke a test tube and looked like she was going to cry...and Ev, he was flirting with her the entire time.” Bruce looked a little distraught, like Tony might be playing a bit of a prank on them.

“I noticed that,” Steve said. “But she seemed...alright with it, so it’s not, ugh, harrasment...” 

“Still,” Bruce said. “This is supposed to be a professional environment, I mean, we’re working with something that’s very...” he sighed, and frowned. Steve looked down at the ground. He wished he knew how to broach the subject with Bruce, because he knew that there was a whole plethora of issues - enough to start a small country, really - that existed between them in regards to the serum. He was pretty sure that part of the reason Tony had asked him to help out was to bring that to a head. 

“I’ll sort it out,” Steve said, looking up and giving Bruce a slight smile. “You just worry about the science.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Experiments**

Elodie brought donuts and coffee the next morning. “Well, that was very thoughtful,” Steve said. 

“I finally found one of the elusive Tim Horton’s they’ve opened up in Manhattan,” she replied. Everyone looked at her, not understanding whatever significance this had, so she shrugged. “They’re all over Canada?” 

“Coffee is always appreciated,” Steve said, pouring himself a cup and dumping some creamer in.

“So, Dr. B, what are we up to today?” asked Jack, leaning against his new desk as he ate a frosted donut. Steve had made sure to get all the equipment they needed the night before and had also very, very nicely asked one of the women in HR to make him some name plates to add a little sense of order to the lab.

“Dr. Banner,” Steve said, and Jack grinned at him. Steve glared at him, and the intern looked down. 

“Well, we’re going to continue with the nucleic acid extraction from the various samples, and there are some, ugh, standard DNA comparisons that need to be run...” Bruce frowned, slightly, and it took Steve a moment to understand what was going to be compared. “And we also need to start getting some data from you, Captain - oxygen saturation rates, refractory periods-”

Elodie grinned at that, and Steve furrowed his brow, not sure what was so amusing. “Uhm, Elodie, since you’ve been to medical school, do you want to do that? With Everett? And Jack and Molly, you can work with me? Here are the test schematics - we’ve got most of the equipment in the gym.” 

Elodie looked over the paper and nodded. “Certainly,” she said. “Do you have somewhere I can take the resting samples, Dr. Banner?” 

Bruce walked Steve and the two interns over to a small room that Steve had become intimately familiar with since he had started assisting Bruce and Tony into looking at the serum. 

“Will your healing abilities affect collection?” Elodie asked.

“No, I mean, not if you’re quick,” Steve replied. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were a doctor - so are you Dr. Laurent?”

“I’ve only done two years of medical school,” she said, preparing the blood draw equipment. “Now I am working through four years of the phD program, then I will finish my last two years of medical school.” Steve watched as Everett narrowed his eyes at her - making Steve berate himself for failing to consider the competitive nature of the interns. He had figured that, getting this far, they would - but no, of course not. 

Elodie quickly took the blood, handing vials off to Everett to put stickers on, which he seemed a bit put out by. “Hope you had enough coffee,” she said, and handed Steve a jar and a ziploc. 

“Oh,” he said. She grinned at him. “I see, uhm, I’ll be right back, then.” 

“Are you just going to have me act as your assistant, then?” Everett said, as Steve went for the bathroom. He sighed, hoping that they wouldn’t be in a full on argument by the time he got back.

He should have knock better than to have any hope. “I was under the impression that this was supposed to be a collaborative endeavor,” Elodie said, arms crossed.

“Oh, sure, play the whole Canadian thing! I know about you - I heard from Hamad about how you-”

“That’s enough!” Steve said, employing his stern military voice, and he paused in order to come up with the correct phrasing - Elodie had seemed to be quite collected, and cool, but she must have said something that allowed the disagreement to not only continue, but escalate. “This is a project that could have many important ramifications and help a lot of people. But we won’t get there if you act like children fighting over who gets to go down the slide first.” 

Everett exhaled through his nose while Elodie nodded, and Steve smiled and hoped he didn’t undermine his authority by then handing her a baggie with his urine sample in it. Before he could think about that further, there was an explosion.

“Motherfucker!” Molly said. “Cocksucker!” Steve darted out of the room and into the lab proper, primarily concerned that the interns were going to flip out and think that Bruce would lose control because of the mishap. He certainly knew what he had thought, before he had met and worked with the man. Steve had felt his chest tighten when Tony had prodded him with the electrical gadget, certain that-

Bruce had his eyes closed. “How did you manage to make that explode?” 

Steve was relieved to see that Jack was laughing - impolite, but at least he wasn’t hiding under a table - and Molly was wincing at Bruce, but was looking right at him. “Well, I may have...plugged a few too many things into that wall outlet?” 

“Is that a urine sample?” Jack asked, and Steve turned to see that Elodie and Everett were standing in the door of the room, both looking on with interest - as though they were watching television. _Which, OK, good,_ he thought. _So they weren’t petrified by the thought that slight problems would lead to Hulk outs._ That was one good thing, at least.

“Maybe...” Steve said, teeth clenched slightly, “we should go over proper safety procedures before we get any further and blow anything else up.”

“That’s a good idea,” Bruce said. “Though it wouldn’t, ugh, really feel like working in a SI lab unless things blew up.” He blinked, as though confused at his own ability to make a joke given the fact that the situation should have had a lot more tension to it. The interns all smiled at them.

_Huh,_ Steve thought, and then glanced back to make sure that Elodie had put the sample down before he went to go and get the safety manual that HR made each lab stock. 

* * * *

**Initial Assessments**

“So! Came to check in on the kids,” Tony said, poking his head in the door that evening after the interns had gone home. “JARVIS said you blew up a thingy, but I ordered a new one.”

“I didn’t blow it up,” Bruce said. He had pulled a six pack out of the fridge and slid a glass bottle across the table at Tony. “The clumsy intern did.”

“Mmm,” Tony said. “Apparently she’s known for that - Rosenberg, right?” He handed the beer to Steve, who rolled his eyes before twisting the cap off.

“I’m not your personal bottle opener,” he said.

“Oh, come on! You’re so good at it,” Tony said. “So, besides the explosion - how are they doing? You like them? I picked them out personally.”

“I thought that,” Bruce said. He and Tony exchanged a look, and Tony grinned at him.

“Bruce, come on! They are geniuses - what geniuses don’t have their quirks? It’s part of the package. And, besides - the one is hot.” Bruce blinked at Tony, and then arched an eyebrow. 

Bruce looked at Steve. “What? Why do I...that would be unprofessional.” 

“They’re closer to your age,” Bruce said, and gave Tony a small smile that made Steve think that there was some kind of communication going on between the two that he was not going to be able to decipher. He sighed and took his own beer - even if he couldn’t get drunk, it was the principle. It sent a message.

“Well, Captain?” Tony asked.

“Are you trying to set me up?” he asked.

“Just asking an opinion,” Tony said, slowly.

Steve furrowed his brow, and thought about how Elodie had pulled herself up onto one of the tables in the gym and sat on it, cross-legged, as she typed and worked up results on her computer. Some dark hair had worked out of her ponytail and fallen into her face. Meanwhile, Everett had paced back and forth while Steve jogged on a treadmill, hooked up to some breathing apparatus and a bunch of electrodes. “Are you even doing work?” Everett asked her, at one point. 

“Non,” Elodie said. “I am looking at porn.” The look of complete disdain that she shot the other intern reminded him of Peggy.

“I suppose she’s...uhm, attractive,” Steve said, finally. He didn’t really want to, but told himself that this was part of...guy talk. Making male friends - bonding with his teammates. And, besides, it was a lot less intrusive than man-bonding with Clint and Thor. He had felt like he needed a condom on even though it was just a conversation. 

Tony arched an eyebrow at Bruce, who shrugged his shoulder. _Was that some sort of...test?_ Steve wondered.

“But! More importantly - they’re working out? You like them? You’re going to make important scientific breakthroughs that will vastly improve the lives of...human people?” Tony asked.

“Sure,” Bruce said, and Tony grinned, sucked down the rest of his beer, and took another. “One of those nights?” he asked.

“Is this all you have? Oh, come on, Bruce!” Tony said. “I’m going to go and get something stronger. Cap - you want dinner? I’ll get JARVIS to get pizza.” 

“Uhm...sure,” Steve said. Bruce didn’t say anything until the doors slid shut behind Tony.

“Pepper problems,” said Bruce, and Steve arched an eyebrow. 

“Standard Pepper problems or-”

“I think she’s considering the nuclear option,” Bruce said, wincing. “It might be a long night.” 

“Right,” Steve said, and then smiled at Bruce. “Thanks for the warning. So I’ll be carrying Tony to bed around-” he glanced at the clock, it was eight now “-one a.m.?” 

“Mmm,” Bruce said, nodding, and then he gave him a smile. Which - progress, Steve thought, and if it meant he would have to pry Tony Stark off of him at 1:10 a.m. when he gripped Steve like an octopus, well, he would take it.

* * * * 

**Bonding**

“Gamma radiation precludes hangovers,” Bruce said, the next morning, as he mainlined a cup of coffee. “Ha.” 

Steve gave him a tight smile. Tony had gone through several stages of drunk last night - snarky, maudlin, reflective, and, finally, self-loathing. “Look at everything I’ve put her through,” he said. “Nearly dying - twice. She’s this nice, sweet, normal person and I fly around in a tin can and...” He stopped, confused, and then looked at the two of them. “Pepper,” he sighed.

“Bedtime, Tony,” Steve said, and before Tony could object, Steve picked him up, slung him over his shoulder and carried him to his room.

“I am protesting this!” Tony said. “This is not dignified!” He beat his fists into Steve’s back, but Steve persevered and deposited him into his bed.

“Here’s some water and some ibuprofen,” he said, nudging them in Tony’s direction.

There wasn’t much for Steve to do that morning, so he spent the time entering the testing results that Bruce and the interns were generating into a spreadsheet. Then he decided that it was fairly sterile looking, and so he started color-coding things to make it easier on the eyes. Bruce went to go and look at something in Tony’s lab after lunch - Steve suspected that it might have been another bottle of alcohol - and left Steve to supervise.

Everett was seated with Jack, and the two of them kept pointing at the computer screen and shaking their heads, leading Steve to believe that they were playing some kind of computer game or watching a sports event. He felt a little insulted by that, and wanted to catch them naturally rather than have to act like a first grade teacher.

Before he could do that, though, there was a crash, and several slides hit the ground and shattered. “Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit!”

“It’s fine,” Elodie said, glancing down at the floor and then at Molly. “We’ve got back-ups.”

“OK, yeah-”

Steve walked over, grabbing a dustpan and brush as he went. “Let me help,” he said, voice soft, and leaned down and held the dustpan while Molly brushed the remains in. “You want to take a little walk? Go get some coffee?”

“Uhm, yeah, sure, OK,” she said.

Steve kept a professional distance, not wanting to give the wrong impression - but it was fairly clear that Molly Rosenberg needed a little bit of a pep talk. “I know what it’s like...” he said, and pressed his lips together, “I mean, to not be confident about your - I hope I’m not being presumptuous-”

“Fuck, no, Captain Rogers,” she said, then blushed. “I mean - I know I’m clumsy. I wanted to go to medical school, like my parents? But freshman year my biology teacher sat me down and told me I broke too much stuff - I was too clumsy to be able to do it. When I was a kid, when someone else would knock something over or break something, everyone in my family - my huge, extended Jewish family - would be like, _oops! She did a Molly!_ and, in an effort to help me, my mother used to follow me around and say _cause and effect, Molly, cause and effect..._ ” 

“Wow,” Steve said. He had been an awkward, sickly kid but his mother, his friends - none of them ever pointed it out to him. “OK. Well - I mean, you’re one of the smartest people in...the country, right? I mean, the selection for this internship is incredibly difficult, I heard, and...so you break some lab equipment. Some of Tony Stark’s lab equipment. I mean, he has more money than...most nations. We’ve all got our things, you know, even I do.”

Molly arched an eyebrow at him as they poured coffee into their mugs.

“Well, I don’t know anything about...life, today,” he said. “And sometimes I have a hard time with people, you know, understanding nuance. Like Tony’s sarcasm, or when Clint - Hawkeye - makes jokes. I think about things really literally, and it sometimes rubs people the wrong way.”

“I see,” Molly said. “Uhm...thanks for sharing that. I really appreciate it, and I won’t-”

“It’s OK,” Steve said, and he reached over to give her a pat on the shoulder, and then thought better of it, remembering the starry-eyed gaze she had given him initially. 

When they returned, Molly immediately walked back to the lab table where Elodie was running some DNA samples through the electrophorysis, and Steve took the opportunity to walk by Jack and Everett. He had been practicing stealth with Clint and Natasha - if they were attacking a HYDRA base, they always knew that they were coming long before the sound of Steve’s footfalls gave them away - and he was pleased that neither intern heard him.

“So, either one of you have the high score?” he asked.

Both looked up at him and then looked at each other, attempting to coordinate a response. “Just taking a moment-”

“We have a time table that we need to follow,” Steve said. “Dr. Banner has a lot invested in this.” He gave them one of his toothy smiles, and he was pleased to see that both seemed to understand exactly where he was going with the statement.

“We’ll get right on that, Captain,” Jack said, glancing sideways at Everett, who nodded at him.

“See that you do,” Steve said, and when he walked over to the desk that he had commandeered as his own, he couldn’t help but catch Elodie’s eye as she furiously typed on her keyboard. She was really the only one he wasn’t sure what to do with it.

Bruce returned later, looking a little flushed, and took Steve into his office and closed the glass door. “Def-Con Red,” he said to Steve, running his hands through his hands. “Pepper’s moving out.”

“Fuck,” Steve said. 

“Yeah,” said Bruce. “So Tony was just blowing some things up and claiming that it was for science, but...” 

“Yeah,” Steve said. “Well.”

“He’ll be OK,” Bruce said. “He’s got a lot to focus on, and a lot of us to help...” he shrugged his shoulder. “I don’t think it’s been good for awhile. But. How are the interns?” Steve filled him in on the days events, and Bruce gave him a slight smile. “That was good of you, Steve. Fuck - I can’t help but feel we’re on the Isle of Misfit Toys.”

“What?” Steve asked, and Bruce grinned at him and began to type into his computer. “It’s not quite the season for this, but...I watched this every year at Christmas when I was a kid.” 

Steve pulled up Bruce’s secondary chair and watched the clay-mation story of Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer, Hermy the Elf, and Yukon Cornelius. “He wants to be a...dentist?” Steve asked, looking at Bruce. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Bruce said. “Instead of making toys.”

“I don’t think that’s the issue, Bruce,” Steve said, widening his eyes. “I think that he’s...gay.”

“Oh God,” Bruce said. “Oh, fuck - oh, he is, isn’t he?” Steve nodded, and Bruce had to pause the show for a good two minutes as he laughed. “As a kid, I never-”

“Fresh eyes, you know,” Steve said, grinning at him. “I mean, I guess they couldn’t have a gay elf, back then...so instead, he’s...”

“A dentist,” Bruce said, catching his breath.

When they got to the relevant part of the show, Steve understood, and agreed. “Yeah,” he said. “Definitely.” Steve glanced into the labs and was surprised to see that the interns had left without saying goodbye - he supposed the closed door had kept them out, but, really, were he and Bruce that... “I’m going to go down to the gym,” Steve said. “I promised Thor I’d spar with him.” 

“Sure, sure,” Bruce said.

When Steve got into the elevator he was surprised to find Elodie wearing a warm-up suit and a pair of headphones. “Hello, Captain,” she said, voice smooth, and nodded at his gym bag as she took her headphones out.

“You use the gym..?” Steve asked, not sure what to say.

“Pool,” she said.

“We have a pool?” Steve asked - but then, of course they did.

“Mmm,” she murmured, grinning at him. “I swam in college.” She put her headphones back in and stepped off at the level that presumably housed the pool. He was going to have to look into that.

* * * *

“Hey, Tony?” Steve said - well, he hoped he said. JARVIS had promised to rely his message through the lab doors to Tony, but Steve had learned that you couldn’t always trust the computer when Tony had locked himself in the lab. “Clint says that we’re all supposed to band together as men and take you out to get you drunk and then go see some strippers.” 

He wasn’t entirely sure that this was a good idea, but Clint had been insistent about it, and eventually won Steve over by pointing out it would be better to have Tony with them, where they could supervise him, then locked in the lab.

“Strippers?” Tony said, over the intercom. 

“I guess so,” Steve replied.

“Is Bruce coming?”

“Yes,” Steve said. He pressed his cheek to the glass as he waited - it seemed like minutes, but finally, the door slid open and Tony exited. 

“OK,” Tony said, and he clapped Steve on the shoulder. “Let’s do this. I’ll get Happy to bring the limo over. JARVIS! Get Happy-”

“Yes, sir,” JARVIS said, and Tony grinned at Steve. His grin only faded when he saw that Natasha was waiting in the living room with everyone else. “Man night,” Tony said, and glared at her.

Natasha cocked her head at him and then raised her eyebrows. 

“Fine,” Tony said. “But when we reach the point of the evening where we all tell stories about how much women suck, you can’t protest.”

“What makes you think I don’t have some of my own?” she asked. Tony pursed his lips and then nodded at her.


	3. Chapter 3

**After Works Drinks**

Tony turned up on Friday afternoon, which didn’t surprise Bruce in the least, given how the week had been going for the engineer. Some website that Bruce had never heard of - but, of course, the interns could pull up instantly - had sources inside Stark Industries that allowed them to issue a massive story called _The Ironman Has No Heart_. Pepper had gone into hiding, Tony was being very elliptical about what had really led to the break-up, and when they had taken him out to get over things Thor had ended up carrying him home, laughing as Tony made lewd jokes about Thor’s hammer.

So, basically, Bruce knew that this was going to happen. Knowledge and acceptance were, however, two different things. “You know how you best get to know your team?” Tony asked, as Bruce put his head in his hands. “Social activities! So! Let’s all go out and get a drink.” He grinned at the interns. The interns grinned back - of course they did, since Tony likely had final say over whether they got hired. “You’re all over twenty-one, right? Captain?”

Steve sighed, and looked at Bruce, who shook his head. “ _A_ drink,” Steve emphasized. “It’s a work thing.”

“Clearly you’ve never been to an office Christmas party,” Tony said. “Lighten up, Captain, I take each department’s group of intern’s out for drinks.”

“JARVIS?” Bruce asked.

“This is, indeed, true, Dr. Banner,” JARVIS replied. Bruce had no doubt that had Tony not been in the company of the interns, he would have stuck his tongue out at Steve.

“I have a place in mind, actually,” Steve said, grasping, it seemed to Bruce, for his last chance to have some control. _Let if go,_ Bruce thought, _embrace the eventual shit show._ Obviously, he had moved onto acceptance. 

Bruce was relieved that Steve didn’t take them to one of the generic, horrible Irish pubs that Midtown was known for. Instead, they wound up in a place designed to look like an old fashioned library or gentleman’s club. Bruce cringed inwardly - Steve had made a common error, which was equating the quality of the surroundings with people behaving themselves when it came to alcohol consumption. 

“What do you all want?” Tony asked, turning to the interns. Three of them widened their eyes while Elodie sort of smirked at Tony, and he grinned back at them. Bruce thought, _here we go_. “Shots, then drinks. Great idea, guys!”

Steve opened his mouth, but Bruce made eye contact with him and shook his head. Tony placed his AmEx on the bar and ordered shots of what was no doubt expensive scotch. “There’s an extra one,” Jack said, almost hopeful.

“That’s Steve’s.”

 “Captain-” Molly said, almost instinctively, and then stopped.

“We’re off clock here, ugh-”

“Molly-”

“Molly, so first names only. You guys know each other’s first names, right? Do we need to get name tags? Steve, take your shot.”

“Think of it as a communal bonding imperative,” Bruce said, softly, and Steve sighed and did his shot with the rest of them before ordering a coke. Bruce followed Tony’s lead and stuck with Scotch, but cut his with soda. Molly ordered a vodka tonic, the two male interns went for beer, and Elodie ended up with a goblet of red wine.

“Really?” Everett asked - the two seemed to have fallen into an antagonism that Bruce was fairly certain wasn’t friendly at all, especially once Everett found out she was doing an MD/PhD. “Aren’t you Canadian? Don’t you drink beer?”

“Quebecois,” she replied.

“What?” Everett asked, and she lowered a death gaze in his direction.

“French Canadian,” she said, and cocked her head slightly at the red wine.

Bruce found Tony next to him, grinning. “So! Looks like they’re all getting along well.” 

“Sure,” Bruce said, as Elodie shifted over to Molly and gave her a smile. Molly, he noted, appeared more afraid of her than she ever did of him - which, interesting.

“I have to say, you were right,” Steve said, from the other side of Bruce.

“What? Sorry? What was that? Did I hear something-”

“About the interns. We’ve really made some strides this week-”

“This is about getting to know each other better, not...talking shop,” Tony said. “Though before I slap down that prohibition I should point out that I looked through everything this week and you have a lot of data on Steve but not on...well, thanks for the compliment, Captain, I won’t turn it away.” 

Bruce fought the desire to squeeze his eyes shut, because of course Tony would think it perfectly reasonable to ask the interns to take samples from the Other Guy. “Molly - has Steve been making you guys do push-ups, or what?” 

“Oh, no, Mr. Stark-”

“Tony, please,” Tony said, sidling up next to her. Steve rolled his eyes, though Bruce had to look at Tony for a moment - the tightness in his posture, the dark circles suddenly apparent under his eyes, how thin he was...whatever had been going on, had been going on for awhile.

“No push-ups as of yet. Which I am grateful for. I’m not very athletic.” 

“Which one of us is?” Jack asked, clearly eager to get close to Tony. “I mean, we’re...squints*, right?”

“Fun trivia fact,” Tony said, smiling slightly, “Canada over there is actually an All-American in swimming.”

“Academic All-American,” Elodie said, not smiling. 

“Still, you had to get into the pool, right?” Tony said. “Not that I’m judging the rest of you. Ask Cap - Steve. When was the last time I worked out?” 

“You tried to trick JARVIS into telling me you jogged last week,” Steve said, and Bruce sighed, remembering that conversation between them - Tony had also tried to convince Steve that the massive amount of sex he was having should count, and then, even with disaster looming, Bruce hadn’t seen the remark for what it was.

“So, what is it that you kids like these days?” Tony asked, leaning against a bar, and Bruce recognized the need to get himself prepared for the long haul.

* * 

Everett made the mistake of trying to engage in some sort of drinking competition with Elodie, which led to Jack having to get in a cab with him and make sure that he got home in time. 

“Pro-tip,” Tony said, “Never try to engage a Canadian in a drinking competition - I learned that the hard way, and now, so have you, Ev. They’re given beer in their baby bottles.” Everett nodded at this, and Jack sort of oozed a little bit all over Tony before Tony turned the younger man around and pointed him in the direction of the other, staggering intern. Elodie, meanwhile, shrugged - her accent had got slightly worse as she had become more intoxicated, but she had held up rather well. 

“That was totally, sort of like Indiana Jones,” Molly murmured, having wisely switched to soda water several drinks back - Bruce was fairly certain that no one was the wiser, since she kept getting her drinks with lime in them.

Steve started making disagreeable noises about how this was the third time this week, with Tony, and Bruce pulled him aside, wondering why, exactly, he felt so defensive on Tony’s behalf. “Look, Steve,” he said. “Don’t you remember when you...lost someone? Ended a relationship? What did you feel like?” 

Steve frowned, and his forehead creased and he got that distant look in his eyes that Bruce recognized as the official signal that he was experiencing a flashback. “I wanted to get very drunk,” Steve said. “Each time. And couldn’t.” 

“Right, OK?” Bruce said, and reached out and gave his upper-arm an awkward pat. 

“OK,” Steve said. “But can this be the last time?” 

“Sure,” Bruce said. “I’ll take care of him from now on-” 

“I’ve recently discovered Tim Horton’s,” Tony said to Elodie. “Pure genius, all of it! How did I live without it?” 

“It’s been a as-yet-unknown cause of numerous American fatalities,” Elodie said, “relatives left with no explanation for why someone was taken from them in the prime of their lives.” 

Tony raised his eyebrows at this and turned and grinned at Bruce, who felt like there was something he should decipher from the expression - despite what everyone thought, if Tony meant to do something, he was doing it for a reason. It was when he was running equations or composing his grocery shopping list in his head that he got in trouble.

“I think it might be time to close out the tab,” Bruce said. “I bet it’s way past bedtime.” He didn’t indicate the subject of the last sentence, allowing each person to interpret it as they felt best.

“Yes, possibly,” Tony said. “Fuck, did we have dinner?” 

“We had little plates of food,” Molly said. “They were very delicious, thank you.”

“We should get real food.” 

“We can order something back at the Tower,” Steve said.

Tony frowned at this as he signed the tab. “Molly and Elodie are not going back to the Tower - unless you live there, and I don’t know about it, has Barton shown either of you how to get into the air ducts?” The two women looked at Tony, perplexed, and he shrugged. “How about this - Steve, take the card, take them out for something proper to eat-”

“It’s 11 at night-” Steve protested.

“City that never sleeps,” Tony said. “Twenty-four hour diners, in the very least. Bruce, we will get something back at the tower.” 

When they were settled in the cab - Tony, with his head on Bruce’s shoulder - it suddenly occurred to Bruce. “You’re trying to set Steve up with one of them.”

“Once I determined he was heterosexual,” Tony replied. “Or, at least, that Jack and Everett didn’t seem to do anything for him. One of them should work, right? I’m sort of rooting for Canada, which, I know, I know, USA! USA!”

“There are so many...reasons that is not a good idea,” Bruce said. “The intern thing, not-”

“Bruce, Bruce, most interns and lab assistants fuck their bosses - some, because they think it’s the only way to get employment, the others, because they have a naughty professor complex - come on! You know-” Tony stopped, then, and made a coughing sound. Bruce had no doubt he was acquainted with how, exactly, Bruce had met Betty. “Besides, Steve isn’t technically their boss - you are, and then I am. He’s just some guy who...is helping you out. Like they are. That’s basically what I convinced the lawyers, anyway.” 

“Of course you did,” Bruce said. Tony turned so he was smiling up at him.

“You admire my ingenuity and forward-thinking,” Tony said. 

“I do,” Bruce admitted, and met the cab driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror. It seemed even he knew something that-

 _You are woefully ignorant, sometimes, Banner,_ he told himself after he realized that Tony had pulled himself off of his shoulder and was kissing him. Then he kissed back. And then he realized that this wasn’t a good idea, and said as much.

Tony pouted. “Why not? And that’s not fair.”

“it’s not fair?” Bruce asked, a little confused. “You just broke up with Pepper - I don’t want to be some...”

“Rebound?” Tony asked, and that wasn’t quite what he was going to say, but he nodded. “I understand,” he said, and gave him a smile that was crippling and sad. “I should have talked with you, first, I guess, instead of just...but I couldn’t work myself up to...you were a part of it, you know? I mean, we were drifting apart what with the whole almost dying from rare-elements poisoning thing and then...almost dying, again, and then...” He was babbling, and Bruce nodded, and put a finger to the other man’s mouth.

“I see,” he said. “OK. Well, I still don’t - I mean, I don’t know if I can rush into anything, given that-”

“Well, I sort of figured that there was a 73.75 per cent chance you would say something like that,” Tony said. “But I can kiss you again, right?”

“Yes,” Bruce said. “And then we really are going to eat something.”

“I would really, really like some donuts,” Tony said. "Especially since we talked about them earlier."

“Something that qualifies as dinner.” 

“But not something you qualify as dinner, because, honestly, Bruce, I don’t see how you can do the rice and tofu thing-”

“That’s why your cholesterol reads as _dead_ ,” Bruce replied, and before Tony could say anything, he kissed him back. 

Tony had barely pulled away from his lips before he said, “You say dead, I say I’m working to preserve myself against aging.” Bruce caught the cab driver again, and this time, the man was rolling his eyes at Bruce.

 

**Mutual Discovery**

“I hate to say it again...” Steve said, as he sat on the desk in Bruce’s office, “But I think that Tony might have had a point.” 

“About?” Bruce asked. He had been staring, absentmindedly, at the e-mail screen on his computer for the past five minutes while Steve talked to him about what they had tried to accomplish that morning - though with four hungover interns, it hadn’t been going particularly well. Well, four hungover interns and one grown-ass man who kept thinking about how he had kissed Tony Stark in a cab last night and kissed him again outside the door to his apartment - all of it on a maturity level that basically rendered him a fifth intern.

“About...the Other Guy.”

“Steve,” Bruce said, snapping to attention, “We can’t...I mean, take samples? Were you there, on the Helicarrier-”

“I didn’t say take samples,” Steve said, and there was a thrust in his jaw that made Bruce regret snapping at him. “But...maybe if they saw-” He looked down, and away, and Bruce inhaled through his mouth and didn’t know if it would be possible to make things less awkward.

“It’s OK,” he said, finally, because they’d been dancing around it since Steve had turned up to help him with his research on the serum. “You’re right.”

“I didn’t mean that-”

“Steve, it’s OK,” Bruce said. “I know what...I know what happened, and...” he shrugged, and winced, even though none of it was OK, really - no matter how Tony wanted to spin it. “And you are right. The containment room should be ready in another day or two.” 

“OK,” Steve said. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-”

“I accept your apology,” Bruce said, hoping that it conveyed some finality, and then, lamely, he thought, _a diversion!_ “Did everything...everything was OK last night? I mean, obviously, since you all made it back-”

“It was fine,” Steve said, “though I’d prefer not to have to be put into that kind of awkward situation-”

“Because you sort of agreed to work for Tony Stark?” Bruce said, giving him a slight smile. “And, really, that kind of thing happens at every company, every university, when people go out for drinks...”

“I just felt like...I didn’t know how to act, that’s all,” Steve said, his voice suddenly soft. “Like, was I - or was I supposed to be their friend, or-”

“They are the same age as you,” Bruce said. Steve glanced through the glass wall that separated Bruce’s office from the larger workspace and shook his head.

“This is going to make me sound...like I was born when I was born, I guess, but I think we were a lot older acting, back then, you know?”

“Sure,” Bruce replied. “You had the Depression, the War...that makes you grow up. Think of it like...free anthropology.” Steve raised an eyebrow. “Observing youth in 2012, or something,” Bruce said, and wanted to apologize for how lame it sounded - but he stopped when he saw something come through his e-mail from Tony, who had had some sort of drunk epiphany about the equations Bruce had sent him last night. “They’re running the molecular models, right?” 

“That’s what I-” Steve began, and Bruce nodded, stood up, and walked into the main room and over to the whiteboard. He wrote out the modeling that they had done on all of the samples taken from Steve, as well as the equations Tony had sent through. He slipped into a sort of zen space, not aware all of the interns were watching him until he stepped back to stare at the bigger picture.

“Dr. Banner? Do you mind?” Jack asked, and he shook his head. The younger man took a different color marker and wrote a variable on one of the molecular structures underneath the one Bruce made. “If we can get a double bond on the carbon-”

“Oh!” said Molly, and Bruce waved a hand in her direction. She picked up another color marker and started to write something off to his other side, and for a moment Bruce pulled himself out of his thoughts and realized that these two were almost elbow to elbow with him and didn’t seem perturbed in the slightest - and, clearly, that had been part of Tony’s plan. He smiled, slightly.

“Move the coefficient,” Everett said, and then, “Sorry, Molly - what if you moved the coefficient?” Bruce felt like his rephrasing might have been the result of a glare from Steve.

“Jack,” said Elodie, and soon she was up at the board as well. “If it were a polymer, we’d be looking at an artificial saturation point-”

“Right, right, of course,” he said, and absently wiped at something with his sleeve. Bruce glanced over to see Everett working beside Molly, and Bruce himself rewrote Tony’s equation and stared at it again. _Fuck,_ he thought, and he was pissed that he hadn’t seen it, himself.

“Well, good work, everyone...uhm, I’ll get more coffee,” Steve said, and Bruce turned and smiled at him as he walked, backwards, out of the workspace.

* * *

Steve sat back and watched the flurried activity, not entirely sure what had inspired it, but pleased. Coffee was being consumed at a staggering pace, the whiteboard was covered and everyone had smudges of dry erase marker on them, and, to judge from the way Bruce was quietly praising the interns, they were working together to make some sort of progress. And, it had only been a week.

He quickly realized that his efforts at organizing - his word, others had suggested things like fussing and interfering - was counterproductive, so he decided to leave Bruce and the interns to whatever major breakthrough they were working on to go get lunch and then to get a long workout in. 

Clint was down in the gym as well, lifting weights, and nodded at Steve when he entered. “You want to spar?” Steve asked, settling down on the mat near the archer to stretch.

“Mmm, not sure,” said Clint. “I was thinking about going for a swim, actually. Did you know we had a pool?”

“Just found out,” Steve said. “I didn’t know you swam.”

“Yeah, well, SHIELD doctor recommended it - good work out, low impact, that sort of thing,” Clint said, though there was a slight smirk on his face as he pushed his last reps on the leg press. 

“Huh,” said Steve. “So you do, what, freestyle, breaststroke..?” Clint gave him a blank look when he pulled his legs off.

“OK, fine,” he said. “There’s a really hot woman that swims in the pool on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Possibly also alternate Tuesdays, but that might have been a one off thing.” 

“She’s one of Bruce’s interns,” Steve said. 

“So one of your interns...” Clint said, standing up and reaching his arms above his head. He blinked at Steve, for a moment, and then grinned. “Maybe you should take up swimming with me, Captain.”

“I - that’s not, it’s just...I don’t think you should be, ugh, objectifying someone who-” Steve worried his lower lip slightly, Clint could have a withering stare that rivaled Natasha’s when he felt like it, he just seemed to unleash it less regularly. “Ugh.” 

“Right, no worries, Cap. Forget I said anything. Though it is a very good low-impact exercise, which I could use more of-” 

“Is that...are you implying something?” Steve asked, and Clint just shrugged at him in the frustrating way he had. 

“No. Let’s spar, then.”

* * * *

“Where’s Dr. Banner?” Jack asked, sitting his bag down on his desk and looking at Steve in an almost accusatory manner.

“We’re going to take a little field trip today,” Steve said.

“Awesome,” said Molly, “I love field trips. Where to?” 

“Follow me,” Steve said. Bruce’s requirement for today’s adventure with the Other Guy was that he be fully transformed once the interns arrived and that Thor be present, just in case the reinforced containment room didn’t work as well as they had hoped. 

“Hello, young scientists!” Thor said, beaming at them outside the door. 

“Interns,” Steve said, “this is Thor.” 

“The God of Thunder,” said Jack, in an almost dismissive tone.

“I have been called that, yes, amongst other things,” Thor said, voice still pleasant. “Though I have been instructed by the Lady Jane not to debate that with Midgardians, as it is _something of a sore subject._ ” 

“Thor is dating Dr. Jane Foster,” Steve said, hoping that would settle things.

“Holy shit! I mean, shit!” said Everett, as Elodie’s eyes widened. “Really? Wow - she is...I’ve read all her papers, and I was thinking about doing my dissertation on-” It was the most enthusiastic Steve had seen him about anything, and he only stopped when Thor pat him on the head and smiled. 

“Dr. Banner says you are all most brilliant,” Thor said. “I am sure she would be happy to speak to someone interested in her astrophysics.” 

“Dude, pull it together,” said Molly. “You look like you’re about to cream yourself.” Steve resisted the urge to face palm.

“Field trip?” Jack said.

“I have brought this for you, Captain,” Thor said, and handed Steve his shield. Steve smiled as Thor picked up Mjolnir - and even then, only Elodie seemed to understand what was about to happen. “Shall we proceed?” Steve nodded, and opened the door to the containment room which had a small viewing area put in so that one of them could keep the Hulk company, should he desire it. 

“Oh, fuck me,” said Molly. The other interns each uttered their own exclamations when confronted with the Hulk, standing and staring down at them.

 _At least,_ Steve thought, _Bruce knew ahead of time to wear bigger pants._

“You said little scientists,” the Hulk said, pointing at Steve in an almost accusatory manner - another one of Bruce’s requirements, that Steve brief Hulk on what was about to happen so he wasn’t surprised when four non-teammates appeared in the viewing area. “That one big.” He pointed at Elodie.

“I suppose won’t be the first person to get body dysmorphia thanks to the Hulk,” she replied, arching an eyebrow, and there was something sad in her expression - and Steve was fairly sure it had more to do with Bruce than it did with Hulk’s commentary. 

“Better be nice to Bruce,” The Hulk said, and he narrowed his eyes at the interns. Jack took a step back and almost reached for the door, noticed that none of the others had, and then stepped forward again, glancing sideways at Steve, who nodded at him. 

“We like Dr. Banner,” Molly said, voice soft. “I’m sorry I break things.” 

Hulk laughed. “Hulk likes breaking,” he said, and Molly blinked twice and then nodded.

“Right, great. Cool,” she said, finally, and Elodie laughed. 

“Not funny, big scientist,” Hulk said, and pointed a finger at her. “See?” 

“Duly noted,” Elodie replied, and nodded her head slowly - Steve had heard her called the mad scientist of the group often, but he didn’t quite understand why, mostly because he wasn’t well-versed with the terms the group used when they described their experiments. He did see Bruce wince at her, once or twice, only for Elodie to shrug it off. Steve understood why Bruce would be cautious about these sorts of things - and, honestly, meeting Bruce had really put Steve’s own experience in an entirely different perspective. But Bruce had good intentions as well, as far as Steve knew - there wasn’t that much difference between him and Erksine, who had made his own monster.

Steve sighed. “We good, Hulk?” he asked.

Hulk growled at them, and Steve smiled at the interns and nodded at the door, which he closed behind him as soon as they were all out into the hallway.

“Send me an electronic mail, young scientist - I’m sorry, what is your name?” Thor asked, pulling Ev over to one side. 

“Huh,” Elodie said, “I was right. He totally needs more ice cream.” 

“What?” Jack asked.

“Sorry, I thought I was thinking - that was what I put, in response to that e-mail, the one to figure out...I said Hulk needed a hug, and some ice cream.” 

“Oh,” Jack said, and then, “ _that_ was what that was for?”

“Duh,” said Molly, glancing over at Steve and then giggling. 

He opened his mouth, then decided it was best if he didn’t pursue this.


	4. Chapter 4

**Positive Behavior Modification**

After two weeks, there was a slight, but noticeable difference in how the interns were functioning - there were fewer arguments, mishaps, video games, and passive aggressive behaviors. It made a huge difference to Bruce, who found them easier to deal with when he didn’t have to fumble off all of those issues onto Steve. Not that he didn’t appreciate Steve being willing to help with things, it just reminded him that, even before the Other Guy, people were not his strong suit.

Bruce had been hoping for some sort of progress at this point, but it seemed to be alluding them - despite a few brainstorming sessions where it seemed like they might be close. He had sent the interns off to get lunch while he waited for their latest series of results to come back. 

“Oh, look, Bruce, you’re _all alone_ in your lab,” Tony said, grinning as he slid into Bruce’s office. Bruce looked up from the heap of papers that were threatening to bury him. “You know that thing I gave you, the computer? Computers? The most sophisticated computer array, thanks to JARVIS-”

“Dr. Banner prefers to work in his own hand,” JARVIS said, and Bruce wasn’t certain, but the AI sounded a bit accusatory. 

“I do,” he said, and smiled softly to Tony. “Not that I don’t appreciate it, but it’s a lot more formulas and - I like to keep track of everything.” 

Tony flipped through some of the pages on Bruce’s desk, and frowned. “I have hoping to see a couple doodles with some hearts and Tony + Bruce 4E and Dr. Bruce Stark-”

“Please,” Bruce said, rolling his eyes. “I would _totally_ keep my own name.” 

Tony frowned, momentarily, then pushed Bruce’s chair back and slid in the new space between the desk and the chair. “Kids off for recess?” 

“Lunch,” Bruce replied, glancing at the clock on his desk.

“JARVIS, lock down protocol, and, ugh, pull the blinds,” Tony said. “And if anyone asks, Bruce is napping.” 

“No one will believe that when you come out of my office,” Bruce replied.

“I’ll hide under the desk, and we’ll call Clint to come and get me and show me an escape route through the air vents,” Tony replied. “See? Nothing to worry about.”

“Well, as long as you’ve got it sorted,” Bruce said, and he allowed himself to smile at Tony. As the other man straddled over his lap, he was glad that he hadn’t sent a second e-mail to HR demanding that they send him a chair that had arm rests on the side.

Bruce puts his hands on Tony’s hips and kissed him, hungry. He’d spent an inordinate amount of time wondering why it was so easy between them - and, perhaps, this was the reason that progress on the research had not been made to the extent he wanted. By all accounts, they shouldn’t have been able to just slip into a relationship with one another. It was as though they’d been doing _this_ all along, and, maybe, Bruce rationalized, they had. At least to the extent that there had always been something bubbling under the surface - since Tony had complimented him on his enormous green rage monster. It was probable that they’d been dating and Bruce hadn’t even been aware. Still, even if there was an explanation for why it was the way it was, it didn’t assuage any of his anxiety. If anything it almost made it worse, because all _this_ meant was that it would get worse - because if there was one thing Bruce knew, it was that relationships never went well for him. 

“Couch?” Tony said, and Bruce felt bad for completely zoning out on him. However, Tony seemed not to have noticed, or at least it wasn’t so obvious he was complaining - not that it made it any better.

He nodded. “Is this why you insisted on there being a couch in my lab?”

“Really, Dr. Banner, what do you take me for?” Tony asked, and as he and Bruce made their way towards the couch he unbuttoned Bruce’s shirt. “I know what it’s like, being an unparalleled scientific genius, and-” Bruce decided it would be best to stop him and kiss him, hard, on the lips. 

“So I’m not going to find lube in the drawer..?” Bruce asked, pulling Tony’s ACDC shirt off.

“I put that in yesterday?” Tony said, arching an eyebrow, and Bruce chuckled.

* * *

“Jack,” Steve said, sitting next to him at the table while the rest of the interns waited to get their food, “do you mind if-”

“Oh, god, I was right,” Jack said, grinning. “You are going to give each of us a pep talk.”

“Ugh-”

“Don’t worry, I am totally cool with it,” Jack said, folding his hands in front of him. “I mean, you are... _Captain America,_ ” he whispered the last part while looking around conspiratorially. 

“Yeah, OK, look,” Steve said, because there was no point in denying it, “you’re young, right?”

“I don’t look it, do I?” Jack asked, “because-”

“The point I’m trying to make is, everyone who works here is a genius, right? But you must have skipped grades, done college in a few years, to be where you are right now,” Steve said. 

Jack nodded. “Yeah, total Doogie Howser thing,” he said. 

“I don’t - never mind,” Steve said, making a mental note to ask Clint about that one later. “You can embrace that, you know? Being that smart. It’s OK.” Jack gave him a puzzled expression, then glanced behind him to see if the others were coming. Steve followed his gaze and frowned, noting that Molly and Elodie seemed to be arguing about something and Everett seemed to be enjoying it. Maybe, Steve hoped, it was just a spirited debate. “Look, I know what’s it like, a little,” he said, and hoped that drawing a parallel between Jack’s experience and his, being sent on tour for the USO and then finally deciding to go and rescue Bucky and the others worked. 

It seemed to. Jack’s eyes were wide as he listened. “OK,” he said, when Steve finished. “So the argument you’re trying to make is that my misbehavior is correlated to my desire to be cool, so people don’t think I’m, like, the king of the nerds?” 

“Basically, yeah,” Steve said. “And that you should live up to your potential.”

“Wow,” Jack said, eyes wide. “So I can definitely tick getting dressed down by Captain America _and_ getting an inspirational speech from Captain America off of my bucket list.” 

“Your what?” Steve asked.

“It was a joke,” Jack said, “but a bucket list is all of the stuff you want to do before you die - before you kick the bucket.” 

“I see,” Steve said.

“You ordered two hamburgers, right?” Everett asked, suddenly sitting next to Steve and putting a tray between them.

“Yeah,” Steve said. “Metabolism. It’s really-”

Elodie narrowed her eyes at this and looked at Jack, whose mouth opened slightly. “Oh, shit, I can’t believe-” Jack began

“I know, and we knew about it, because it was in the-” Elodie said.

“And we haven’t even ran any tests to account for the variability-”

“Oh, come on,” Everett said, “are you two telling me this whole time we haven’t been taking the super metabolism into account?” 

Elodie winced and looked contrite for the first time since the interns had arrived in the lab - which Steve admired, it was rare for any of the four of them to admit they were wrong. “Not entirely, no,” she said. 

They began to talk science at one another, rapidly, and Steve picked up the phone Tony had given him and began to slowly type to Dr. Banner - he wasn’t sure if his fingers were too big for the keys, or if he just wasn’t adroit with this sort of thing. He knew how to type, but every time he tried to text someone he felt a little bit like the Hulk. 

“I hate those little keyboards,” Everett said, glancing over at him. He held his own hand up, and Steve smiled. “You might like the one on the screen better, I think this phone has both options...do you mind?”

“No,” Steve said, a little surprised - Ev was by far the most abrasive of the interns, and Steve had suspected that he didn’t particularly like him, especially given how often Steve had to rebuke him for being argumentative or not paying attention. He handed the phone over, and Ev hit a few keys and then gave it back to him. “That’s a little better,” he said, “thanks.” 

He sent the text off to Bruce, letting him know they would probably be back early from lunch and trying his best not to sound stupid as he explained what the interns had discovered. Then Steve sat back and ate his hamburger - he sort of liked watching the interns when they were brainstorming and bouncing ideas off of one another. It reminded him a little bit of when he would sit down with the Commandos and work out a plan, except that he would be leading those conversations. But still - he was at least a little bit a part of this.

* * *

“Oh, hey, Tony,” Steve said. “I thought you had a meeting-”

“Just nipped in to see how you guys were doing, if you needed any patents-” Steve glanced down at Tony’s jeans, where the fly was down. Tony gave him a sharkish grin and zipped up before any of the interns noticed - they were animatedly trying to explain to Bruce what they had done wrong.

“Great, this is good, we can have a moment,” Tony said, and he wrapped an arm around Steve’s waist and guided him to the other side of the lab. “There’s something we need to talk about, Captain.”

“Oh,” Steve said, and he frowned. “Have I not been-”

“God, Steve, it’s not one of those talks - I don’t think I could fire you if I wanted to...well, from this particular job, maybe, but you’d still be living in my tower and in charge of - anyway, don’t look like I kicked your puppy.”

“Tony-” Steve said. 

“No, it’s a different kind of talk - because, seriously? She’s brilliant, good sense of humor, attractive, athletic, understands the unique pressures of your particular line of work-” Steve closed his eyes. 

“You have been trying to set me up,” he said, softly. He was pleased, though, that Tony had mentioned brilliance and sense of humor first.

Tony pulled back. “And what’s wrong with that? Get out, you know, live a little in this century?” 

“Isn’t that against company policy, because I remember there being-”

“One, you’d be surprised, Cap, sometimes good things can come from breaking the rules,” Tony replied.

“You would know that, of course,” Steve said, and Tony grinned at him.

“Second? You’re just a consultant, so, technically, you’re actually fine - but, if it works, you know, turns you on, or whatever, feel free to pretend you’re-”

“Thanks, Tony,” Steve said. Tony smiled at him, then turned towards Bruce and the interns.

“Seriously? We all overlooked the need to come up with a usable variable for the metabolic impact on mitochondrial function?” Tony said, loudly, as he walked across the room and back towards the science.

“We were using a standard one, rather than taking into account the fact that-” Elodie began, and she made eye contact with Steve for a brief moment before she turned and began to talk to Tony again. 

It was, Steve decided, going to be another one of those afternoons where he would be most useful down in the gym.

* * *

He smiled at Natasha, who was stretching on one of the mats when Steve entered the gym. “Warming up, or down?” he asked.

“Down,” she said, and, after a moment, waved a hand at the mat across from her. Steve resisted the urge to smile. For several minutes, they didn’t talk - Steve had found it was best to let Natasha start conversations, in these situations, and for all of the comparisons her grace and strength got her to a cat, it was a bit like letting a dog come to you. “How’s genius babysitting?” 

“It’s going well,” Steve said. “They just found out they did something wrong, so...hopefully they’ll be on their way to something useful, which will make Tony happy - what?” 

Natasha gave him a slight, knowing smile, so Steve arched an eyebrow at her. “Well,” she said, “I’m sure Tony wouldn’t mind if...I mean, the interns are treating Bruce like a normal super-genius, you’re not getting angry at how there’s nothing to watch on TV in the future, and Tony’s very-special delinquent interns get turned into productive employees.” 

“Huh,” Steve said - and really, he should have seen that. Natasha spread her legs and then bent herself in half, leaning over her hip to touch her fingers to her toes. Then she straightened, stretched to the other side, and pulled her legs together into what Steve suspected was a yoga pose - he had caught Natasha and Clint doing yoga together, one morning, and was told never to speak of it to anyone else. “Natasha? Do you mind if I ask you for some personal...advice?” 

Natasha curled her lip, then gave Steve a slight smile. “You can ask,” she said.

“How do you go about asking someone...for a date?” 

“A work colleague?” 

“Um...yes,” Steve said - Clint had probably told Natasha.

“Well, then, you say, Hello, Colleague, would you like to get a drink after work? But make sure it is just you and the colleague, so that no one else decides to come along.” 

“That seems easy enough,” Steve replied, feeling a little silly - he probably could have come up with that, on his own, but he also just needed to check that his instincts were right. Natasha arched an eyebrow at him, then pulled herself up in a fluid movement. 

* * *

 **Bodily Fluids (Before and After)**

“Dr. Banner?” Bruce looked up, surprised to see Jack and Elodie standing in his doorway. The interns had never breached this divide before - they always waited for him to enter the main lab to ask any questions, even if it was clear that they were questions that had come up hours ago. Bruce wasn’t surprised - after the demonstration the other day, he could understand why they were wary. It had been important, though - after the battle in New York, and then Sydney, the Hulk had become a little bit of a crowd favorite, which Bruce understood, in a way, and was also baffled by.

“Yes, hello?” he said, looking up from the equations he had been trying to figure out.

Jack glanced at Elodie, who rolled her eyes. “After going through everything from the past couple days to adjust for the metabolic impact...we were wondering if it would be possible to get a blood sample?” 

“From me?” Bruce asked, and he flinched for a moment and then regained his composure. They should have done this weeks ago, of course, but he hated - he had to stop himself from articulating it, from thinking of...

“If you didn’t mind? We could get a nurse to take it-”

“No, um, that would be fine,” Bruce said, meeting Elodie’s eyes. How threatening was she? She was taller than him, but that was about it. “This is very important, though.” He sighed, not wanting to remember any of _that_ , either. “You cannot let it come into contact with your skin - the radiation levels are quite high, and-”

“I think the gamma gloves are slender enough I should maintain mobility,” Elodie replied. She was unnerving in situations like this - Bruce knew enough that her willingness to expose herself to things like that wasn’t some sort of bravado, or even fearlessness, more fearlessness qualified with a sort of don’t give a fuck as to the consequences attitude. He wondered if that was a Canadian thing.

“It’s very important,” he said.

“I understand, Dr. Banner,” she replied.

“I really don’t think we’ve got enough insurance to cover any injuries,” he added, and she gave him a slight grin. “Let me finish going through this, and I’ll come out and grab you.” 

When they left, he sat down in his chair and stared down at the equation as though he was in deep thought about them - though it wasn’t like he needed to fool anyone, because none of them knew about what he had been through. The needles, the scalpels, the glints of metal that he caught out of the corner of his eye...and all he could hear were the hushed voices of the doctors and the gurgling sounds from the tube going in and out of him.

He took a deep breath. The room they’d been using to get samples from Steve had blinds that could be opened so he could see the lab, see that he was in Stark Towers, see that he was safe.

Still - he felt the familiar grip in his chest and the beginnings of what, before all this had happened, he would characterize as a panic attack-

“Bruce?” 

He turned, surprised to see Steve and also surprised to see that he how hard he was gripping the edges of his desk.

Steve held both his hands towards Bruce, palm forward, and gave him that easy smile of his. “Everything OK? I saw-”

“I’m fine, now, thanks,” Bruce said, because he was - silly, but there was something about Steve that he now associated with safety and comfort, possibly because Steve was the one who fetched them coffee and tea before they even needed to ask for it and who stopped all bickering sessions between the interns. And, of course, the shield.

Steve nodded, and turned, and Bruce realized he probably had sounded dismissive, so he waved his hand at the door. Steve closed it. “They want me to give them some blood samples,” Bruce said, motioning for Steve to sit on the plush office couch - and then grimacing, slightly, remembering as soon as Steve’s ass hit the cushions what he had done, several times, on those cushions. “I - after everything happened, the military...sort of kept me, for awhile, and...”

“Oh,” Steve said. He had been on the other side of that experience, obviously, both in terms of outcome and treatment. “If it makes you...uncomfortable, you don’t have to-”

“I should, though,” Bruce said. “For, uh, science.” 

Steve gave him a soft smile. “We could have Tony come and-” Bruce winced, and Steve rubbed a hand through the hair on the back of his neck. “Right. Well, I could go in with you?” 

Bruce nodded, and Steve put his hands on his knees. 

“Everett was telling Molly this morning about how Elodie told him that she used to dissect rabbits and other animals in her basement at home,” Bruce said - because they were known to behave like teenagers and gossip about the interns eccentricities - and it was only after he said it that he realized he was supposed to be facilitating Steve in asking her out. That, worse, before he made the comment, Steve seemed to be actually inclined towards it.

“Yeah,” Steve said. “Her dad hunted, I guess, and...well. I guess it’s a little bit like what Tony did to Thor’s blender.” Bruce winced - the poor blender. Thor had been fairly upset - but managed to convince Tony for almost two days that it was because, thanks to JARVIS, Dummy, and You, he thought all mechanical appliances were sentient in Midgard.

“Right,” Bruce said. He could cross matchmaker off of the list of possible careers if the whole super hero, scientist, rage monster thing didn’t work out. “Let’s just do this.”

“You sure?” Steve asked, and Bruce nodded.

“Pretend you’re talking to me about something important, so I can maintain my veneer of professional dignity...or something,” Bruce said, and Steve raised his eyebrows. He was a lot smarter than he gave himself credit for.

As they exited, Steve proved this by saying, “We could use Clint as a baseline, since he’s quite fit.” 

“That might be a good idea,” Bruce said, nodding to Jack and Elodie. 

“Hawkeye’s my favorite!” Jack said, and then looked at both of them. “I mean, uh...right. We’re cool, yes?” Bruce nodded, and Steve just shook his head.

As Bruce sat down, Steve lingered in the door while Jack watched Elodie with what Bruce thought was, at first, fascination but proved to be trepidation. “You don’t have to watch,” Bruce said finally.

“Great, thanks,” Jack said. “I just - reason I didn’t go to medical school.”

“Why did you go to medical school?” Bruce asked Elodie - he didn’t know that many people who went for the joint M.D./phD, and when people who wanted to do phDs in physics thought something was too much work or pressure...

“In high school advanced biology they took us to see a gross anatomy lab after it was done,” Elodie said, strapping a tourniquet on Bruce’s arm. “We were able to see all of the organs and hold them, and we stretched an intestine across the room.” She pricked him, and she was certainly a lot better than - Bruce shook his head. “It was the greatest day of my life.” 

“Huh,” Steve said, as Elodie deposited vial after vial in a small container.

“What, you thought it would be green?” Bruce asked him, and Steve issued a very awkward giggle. Every now and again he would do something like that and remind Bruce he was really just a kid - younger than all of the interns save Jack, actually.

“There we go,” Elodie said, pressing a small cotton swab onto Bruce’s skin. 

“No cartoon bandages?” Bruce asked.

“Alas,” Elodie replied. “But I’m not in charge of stock.”

“Is that really something we need?” Steve asked, furrowing his brow, and then he smiled. “Right. Oh, Joke.” 

“You want to start running that through all the basics?” Bruce asked, and Elodie nodded. “But do it in the containment field-” Elodie nodded again. 

* * * *

“I was wondering when I was going to get some life advice from Captain America,” Elodie said, turning as Steve approached her at the coffee machine. He tried to smile, but it probably came out more as a grimace. “Yes,” she said.

“Yes what?” 

“You were going to ask if I wanted to get a drink, or coffee,” she replied. Steve glanced off to the side, then nodded. This wasn’t going exactly as planned. “Do you even like alcohol?” 

“Uhm, some wine is alright-”

“Then let’s get coffee. I’ve got some blood samples that need tending and we’ve got the gamma radiation signatures we want to check so...six?” 

“Sure,” Steve said. “I mean, I have...yes, that would be fine.” He gave her a slight smile and she nodded.

* * *

“It sounds like you were very brave,” Tony said, slumping onto the couch while Bruce wrote on the marker board in his office.

“Well...” Bruce said, “Steve was there to hold my hand.” 

“Really?” Tony asked, pushing himself so he was more vertical. “Do you think if we asked he would-”

“I thought you playing matchmaker with my interns,” Bruce replied, not turning.

“She can come too.” Bruce threw a marker at him and hit him in the forehead.

“Ow!”

“So you get to zap me with pointy things, but I can’t-”

“Do you know what this is, Bruce?” Tony asked, now slouching down on his side and peering at him with wide eyes. “Domesticity. Science domesticity.” 

Bruce turned and smiled at him. “You’re just saying that before you correct my math?” 

“No, actually, that all looks correct,” Tony said, narrowing his eyes for a moment. “Besides, you were the one who figured out where I went off on the trajectory last night...Question, though - she knew about your, ugh, mutating blood, right? Also, thank god your semen doesn’t do that-”

“You made sure we destroyed all of that, right?” Bruce asked, because he really didn’t need any of the interns coming across that whole series of experiments. Tony nodded. “And, yes, when we first started, Steve included it as part of his safety lecture-”

“Of course he had a safety lecture-”

“And I reminded her, today,” Bruce finished.

“Huh,” Tony said. “That’s good, that’s another plus, you know, cool under fire, for the next time we get attacked by giant...what did Thor say those things were, anyway?” 

“I don’t remember, but they were sort of like ostriches and bears, which...” Bruce shook his head. The Australians had at least taken it in stride, even going so far as to manufacture little stuffed versions of the monsters, with all of the profits going towards victim relief.

“Yeah, I thought I was having an acid flashback - oh, don’t give me that look, Banner, remember college? You went, right? - hey! Hey! You didn’t tell me Steve and Canada were going on a date!” Tony pointed out Bruce’s window as Steve stood by Elodie’s desk with his hands in his pocket.

“Huh,” Bruce said, taking his glasses off. “Did not know that, actually.” He turned when he saw Steve’s face reddened and was not surprised to see Tony waving at him and giving him a thumbs up. “JARVIS, blinds?” 

“He’s my AI, I can overrule-”

“Discretion is the better part of valor, sir,” JARVIS replied as the blinds closed.

“I’m not sure that even makes sense in this context,” Tony replied, wrinkling his nose slightly.


	5. Chapter 5

Elodie sat across from him and widened her eyes slightly. Steve smiled - he was glad that he had got the nerve up to do this. It wasn’t like it had been overly difficult, and while he had appreciated the formality that things had in the past, there was definitely an appeal to this kind of process as well.

“So, what is it?” she asked, “Too blunt? Too macabre? Don’t take things seriously enough? Too interested in mutations?”

“What?” Steve asked.

“Unless, of course, the theme for everyone is confidence. In which case I am supposed to embrace those qualities about myself, rather than try and detract from them, but always remember that consent issues are important and experimenting on myself is a no-no.” 

“I think that’s probably good advice,” Steve said, then realized what she had just said. “Shit.” 

“Shit?” She cocked her head and met his eyes, and Steve had to look down into his coffee, feeling a little bit ridiculous. “Oh. You thought I was being...sarcastic. Or flirtatious.” Steve didn’t respond and was surprised to feel her hand over his. He looked up at her again. “Sorry, um, just not used to...” It was her turn to glance away, and for what felt like a solid minute, neither of them said anything.

“I’m really sorry - I never should have presumed, I mean, we’re working together, and, I really shouldn’t have-”

“Shush,” she interrupted. “I’m not used to men...asking me out, that’s all, so I just presumed.” 

“That’s...” Steve wasn’t sure what to say to that - she was tall, certainly, but she was pretty, and she was...well, she was like Peggy. She didn’t take shit from anyone, she seemed to have her convictions, and she was capable. “I don’t understand.” 

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I mean, I do, but this doesn’t seem to be the best time to, err, go through all the reasons I-” She sort of blushed, which was new, but Steve nodded at her. 

“I think you’re swell,” he said, and felt himself blush, because he was fairly certain that no one said that sort of thing anymore. 

“Thanks,” she said. “You too. I think - do men aspire for swellness?” 

“Sure,” Steve replied. He really had no idea, either, since he he had never been in a position for a dame - woman, he corrected himself - to assess him in that way. Bucky would know the answer. 

“Are you-?”

“Sorry, just thinking of an old friend,” he replied.

“Right,” she said, and drank her coffee. She had the look she got in her eyes when she was considering something. “So, we’ve hit two of our big issues, eh? In-” she glanced at her watch- “less than give minutes, for me, a record for a first-”

“Date,” Steve filled in. “I mean, if-”

“That sounds agreeable,” she replied, and took another sip of her coffee before breaking into a large smile. “You sure you also don’t want to talk to me about how I shouldn’t be trying to make an infantata* in my spare time?” 

“What?” Steve asked.

“ _American Horror Story?_ ” Elodie asked, and Steve noted that she wasn’t doing the thing everyone else did - she was asking like he was anyone else, not someone who had missed every seminal cultural event for the past seventy years - and, OK, Tony was right _again,_ which was a little annoying. 

He shook his head, in response.

“Do you like horror movies? Do you have any issues with gore?” For a moment, Steve saw Bucky strapped to the table in the HYDRA facility, his friend’s face white and ashy because of god knows what had been- “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“No, like, monster movies?” Steve asked. “Sure, why not?” 

“OK,” she said. “I have the first season, if you wanted...we could get dinner, before?” Steve nodded, and drank the rest of his coffee. “Do you want another?” 

“Oh, I thought-” he pressed his lips together, feeling embarrassed again. Someone like her, she probably had plans or studying to do or-

“Sure, why the fuck not?” Elodie said, taking down the rest of her coffee. “Are you in the mood for anything?” 

* * *

Not that anything happened, the night before - well, there had been some kissing, which was nice, especially after being introduced to crysturbation or, alternately, the sad wank.** While the subsequent debate over which term was better had been fun, Steve had been fairly certain it was the kind of thing that guaranteed that things weren’t going to go anywhere because...well, what Clint had once referred to, when shouting at some television characters, as entering the friend zone. So the kissing was definitely a good sign that that wasn't a danger.

Steve was certain that, the next morning, everyone would know. Steve knew when Bucky had had a good time with a woman - though, later, when he was able to reflect on this, he was a little sad to realize this might have been because Bucky had been a bit of a braggart. Though Steve supposed if he looked like Bucky did, he might have been as well. 

But everything went largely unnoticed - except by Tony, but Steve had figured that was a given - because his date had been over shadowed by an even more profound experience.

“You look like you’ve spent the whole night orgasming-” Jack began, looking at Everett as he stared off into space when he should have been doing a computer model. Steve had been about to approach him about it, except Ev had seemed content rather than pissed off about something, so Steve had taken a step back to observe.

“Ev had a big date last night,” Molly said.

“It wasn’t a date! I - well, I had coffee with Dr. Foster,” Everett said. “But it was absolutely not a date.”

“Dude, we know,” Jack said.

“I would still protest,” Elodie murmured, not looking up from what she was working on her own computer. “Her boyfriend has a massive, magic, hammer.” When Molly and Jack snorted, Steve almost arched an eyebrow, then remembered that Bruce and Tony often sniggered when discussions involved Thor’s hammer. He sighed, instead. 

“Or is it a space hammer?” Molly asked. It took Steve a moment to realize this was a real question.

“Actually, I think it might be a magic space hammer,” Steve said. 

“Ev can tell us after he conducts some research on it with Dr. Foster,” Jack said.

“Has physics even articulated the fact that they need to come up with something to explain magic space hammers?” Elodie asked, pursing her lips.

Everett blanched, which Steve took to be a no. “Has biology-” he stopped, realizing Elodie had him, but she waved her hand around the lab anyway. “Is Dr. Banner coming in today, Captain Rogers?” 

Not the best transition, but Steve would give it to him. “He didn’t say anything about being late - I guess just work on what you’ve got,” he said. He had plenty that he needed to file. He knew that he should probably protest the fact that he was being used as more of a traditional intern than the interns, but this research wasn’t just important to Bruce. Whenever Steve got a little pissed off with whatever tasks he had - which he had largely assigned to himself, anyway - or with interns, off topic and giggling or fighting over something, he remembered what it felt like to be sick and reminded himself that this could legitimately help people.

Bruce came in ten minutes later. “Dr. Banner,” Steve said, looking up before the interns did and noting that Bruce had a hickey on his collarbone and that it was visible because he had incorrectly buttoned his shirt. _Not a mental image I particularly needed,_ Steve thought. _Not that there is anything wrong with-_ “Bruce,” he whispered, and pointed.

“Oh, thanks,” Bruce mumbled, and quickly tugged a lab coat over his shirt. He smiled at the interns, and it was a genuine look of fondness - the kind of smile Steve had seen reserved only for Tony and during a few of the less stressful Avengers social situations, like movie nights. “Do we have results from yesterday’s chemical immersions, or..?” 

* * *

“Steeeve-” 

“I’m ignoring you, Tony,” Steve replied, staring at the coffee machine, determined not to ask the other man for help. Steve had requested an espresso machine for their common area after he calculated how much Molly and Everett spent on Starbucks for a week and felt a little nauseous - and that was even when he considered inflation. He had no idea what the difference between espresso and coffee was, though apparently espresso was a good deal more complex.

“Because I was right, again, wasn’t I? How’s Canada?” 

“I hear it’s lovely,” Steve replied. “Very polite people. Cold in the winter, though. I’ve never been much for hockey-” He turned because Tony hadn’t responded at that point.

Tony had a smirk on his face. “Huh,” he said. 

“I can make jokes,” Steve said. “Say clever things.”

“Just not work the coffee machine,” Tony replied. Steve shrugged. There were more important things to consider. “What do you need?” 

Steve just passed the small slip of paper towards him.

“I feel like I’m doing a public service, you know?” Tony mused, sticking a mug into the machine. “Taller women, you know, they have a hard time finding men to date them - some, and I never understood why, you know, Pepper was...anyway, some men have some thing about taller women. And then taller men, you know, pursue shorter women, and...” Tony shook his head.

“I don’t think - we just watched some episodes of _American Horror Story,_ ” Steve replied, fairly certain that the comment - because it was Tony’s - had something to do with sex. 

“She would like that,” Tony replied.

“Science should be able to laugh at itself,” Steve replied, quoting Elodie. Then he grinned as Tony handed him a second mug. “For example - has physics considered the need to articulate some kind of response to Thor’s magical space hammer?” 

Tony’s mouth opened slightly, and then he worked it back and forth like his jaw was aching. Then he closed it. “Huh,” he said, finally. “Jane’s still around, isn’t she?” 

“I believe so,” Steve replied, grinning, and as Tony walked away, he gathered up the coffee mugs. Then he stopped, and sniffed - there was something in the air that was hard for him to identify, some sort of astringent like chemical. “Do you smell that?”

“Smell what?” Tony asked, right as a slight hissing sound became apparent.

“The Tower has been compromised with a chemical agent of unknown origin, currently being filtered into the 58-65th floors,” JARVIS intoned - it made sense to go after the floors the Avengers were located on, and whoever was attacking had done their homework, since they included Bruce and Tony’s lab. “Beginning lockdown protocol 3A-”

The AI’s calm voice was then overwhelmed by a massive roar.

* * * *

 

Tony coughed, and then stumbled when he tried to move for the wall - he was suddenly quite dizzy, and...

Steve caught him. “Tony?”

“Masks-” Tony said, and waved in the direction of where they kept the defibrillator. The masks had been sort of an after thought. Pepper had even shook her head, a bit, like she did when she thought he was being overly paranoid - _Tony, it’s not WWI. I don’t think anyone is going to attack with mustard gas in the ventilation system..._ Once he could breathe and stand, he would feel smug.

Steve fumbled, for a moment, before pulling out one of masks. He placed it over Tony’s face, and then winced. “I feel a little-” 

_Well, that’s not a good development,_ Tony thought, slowly breathing to get the fresh, oxygenated air into his blood. He was relieved when, after a few more inhalations, Steve stood up straight and shook his head. _Go go super soldier serum!_ Tony thought, and, hey, here was another application for it. 

“JARVIS, has the threat been contained?” Tony asked.

“Yes, and evacuation procedures have been initiated for the rest of the tower. Due to the unknown nature of the chemical agent-”

“Right, got that,” Tony interrupted. “Who’s stuck in here with us?” 

“Dr. Foster is visiting with Thor, and then Agent Barton, Agent Coulson and Agent Romanov.” 

“Can you get a hold of Thor?” Tony asked. There was another roar coming from the lab, and he met Steve’s eyes. Of course the big guy would make an appearance - he was what stood between Bruce and whatever nasty effects the chemical had.

“Tony, what is the nature of this-” Thor said, voice loud and clearly infused with anger.

“Not sure, Thor, but we’ve got a big green issue down here,” Tony said. “Can you make sure Jane, Natasha and Barton are OK?” He then told Thor where he could find masks in the residential levels of the tower and that, if the three mortals needed it, there was oxygen in the small infirmary that had been set up. “JARVIS will help you with anything you need, OK? We’ve got to go and see-”

“Keep me informed of your progress, Tony,” Thor said.

“Suit?” Steve asked. 

“There’s one in my lab - but we’ve got to get past-” 

“He hasn’t since Hulk met the interns, right?” Steve asked. “And before that, in Sydney and New York, and each time...”

“Right, but Bruce did that himself,” Tony said, sighing. “Remember the Helicarrier?”

Steve winced, then nodded at Tony. The Hulk issued another sound, more of a frustrated grumble, but still quite loud - proving he had perfect timing.

The lab was quiet, and even though all the lights were working it still had an eerie feel to it. Tony glanced around quickly, noting that a few things had been knocked over - chairs, a computer, a microscope - but there wasn’t any major damage, which was encouraging. 

“Hey, Big Guy?” Tony called, voice muffled by the mask.

“Hulk?” Steve asked, a little tentative.

There was a grumbling sound from the other side of the lab, and Tony smiled. Then he realized that Steve couldn’t see that he was relieved, so he said, “I think he’s got them in the contaminant room.” 

“The what?” Steve asked, following Tony.

“Well, working with...radiation, biochemical engineering, irradiated bodily fluids-”

“What?” Steve asked again.

“Lots of dangerous things, OK?” Tony said, though thought, _at least not one bodily fluid,_ “So there are showers, and oxygen masks, and other stuff.” Tony stopped several feet short of the entrance to the room and put out his arm to hold Steve back. “Big Guy?” 

“Tin Man OK?” Hulk replied, and his large head stuck out of the contaminant room.

“And so is Captain,” Tony said, approaching slowly.

“Hello, Hulk,” Steve offered. The interns were sprawled on the floor of the room, near the showers. Their eyes were open, and they looked dazed. Steve moved forward. “You did very well, getting them here.” Hulk narrowed his eyes and grunted at Steve.

“Little scientist told me to,” he said, and pointed at Everett. Steve raised his eyebrows, and Tony knew what he was thinking - good thing someone had paid attention during the safety lecture. 

“Good job, Big Guy,” Tony said. “Can we come in and help?” Hulk grunted at them again, which Tony took to mean he assented.

“They can’t seem to move-” Steve began.

“I think it’s a neuroparalytic,” Tony said. He waved his hand in front of Molly’s face, and watched as her eyes followed it. “Just meant to...disable, not to...” _Well, hopefully,_ he added.

It took a few minutes to get the oxygen running, and after they had each of the interns attached to the breathing masks Tony sent Steve to go and get some more of the portable ones like Tony had - a paralytic meant, more than likely, that someone was going to attempt to breach the tower. 

“Sir, Dr. Foster for you.” JARVIS said, as Tony attached a blood pressure cuff to Jack - he didn’t know much medicine, but he knew enough, and getting some basic readings might help figure out what needed to be done.

“Jane?” Tony said.

“Do you know what this is, Tony, because Clint...he was in the damn vent when whatever it was, and he’s not in good shape-” Tony closed his eyes and glanced over at the interns. They had probably got to them right in time.

“No,” he said. 

“We could really use Bruce-”

“Yeah, he’s not available right now, but you can leave a message-”

“This is not time to make fucking jokes,” Natasha interjected.

Tony sighed. “JARVIS is analyzing it, and once he knows, you’ll know. Then you can-”

“I’m an astrophysicist!” Jane protested.

“Well, Bruce is a physicist too,” Tony replied. “Thor, buddy? I think someone is going to try and enter the tower, attack us.”

“I surmised as much,” Thor replied. 

Steve returned with the masks, just as Jack curled his hand into a fist and made a coughing sound. He reached for the mask, and Tony was on him immediately, taking the younger man’s hands into his own. “No, no, don’t do that,” Tony said. “You just got dosed with a nasty chemical, you need to breath some oxygen, OK, kid?” Jack nodded at him. “Hey, Big Guy - Bird Man needs Bruce-” 

Hulk snarled at Tony. “Tin Man said attack.” 

“Bird Man needs a doctor-” Tony said, wondering if Hulk worked like a dog, where you needed to meet his eyes in order to show dominance - not that he was dominant, necessarily, more that he needed the Big Guy to listen... though it wasn’t a bad idea. Maybe he could get Cesar Milan to come by, give them some pointers?

“Tony,” Steve said, and he glanced over to see Elodie trying to get up. “Elodie’s done two years of medical school.” 

Tony considered this, then nodded. “There’s an infirmary upstairs that should have most of what you’d need,” Tony said. “Steve, go with her. Hulk, you keep an eye on these guys, OK? I’m going to go and get the Tin suit.” Hulk crossed his arms, as if to say, _finally._ “That makes it you, Steve, and Thor upstairs with Natasha, if she’s feeling better, and me and Hulk down here, OK?” 

“Alright,” Steve said, already helping Elodie to get one of the portable masks on. “Are you sure you feel up to it?”

“Swimmer,” she huffed, as Steve helped her stand. “I can hold my breathe for two minutes, and once I saw-”

“Oh,” Steve said. “Useful.”

“Eh?” Elodie replied, and Tony did his best to suppress a smile - before he realized it was unnecessary, given his mask - at the way she was leaning into him and at the care that was evident in Steve’s eyes. He hadn’t really thought, when he had decided to occupy Steve’s time with the care and feeding of the interns, that romance would be possible. His objective had more been to keep the Captain busy by giving him some charges who could really use his leadership and old-fashionedness to whip them into shape. As far as Tony was concerned, it was already a win-win without any elements of attraction entering into things - and this would definitely be good for Steve, to have someone outside of the Avengers linking him to this century. 

“You think you can handle three flights of stairs?” Steve asked, and Tony grinned at how she glared at him. “We’ll keep you updated, Tony.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *infantata, the perverse basement dwelling [cannibalistic baby thing](http://americanhorrorstory.wikia.com/wiki/Infantata) from American Horror Story.
> 
> **also American Horror Story, because apparently Elodie really knows how to woe a man on a first date (though, in all seriousness, you should watch this show. It's ridiculous and amazing and all that is good and perfect in...death.)


	6. Chapter 6

“Who are you?” Coulson demanded from behind his own mask as Elodie ripped open the medical cupboards, looking for something - on the way up, JARVIS had told them the nature of the chemical they’d been gassed with, so she at least had something to work with.

“Elodie Laurent,” Steve said. “One of Bruce’s interns - he’s still sort of green right now, and she’s done two years at Harvard medical...”

Natasha cocked her head at Coulson. “Probably more useful than Bruce.”

“She’s a biochemist,” Steve said, feeling a little - defensive? proud? Already? _Looks like you might have a crush, Rogers,_ he thought, and that was a little strange, because the last time he had one was either five months or seventy years ago, depending on how you looked at things.

He glanced at Clint, who was a really unpleasant grey color and whose eyes were sort of rolling into his head. Jane and Natasha had put oxygen right into his nose and attached him to a heart and blood pressure monitor, both of which were rather weak.

“It wasn’t meant to...” Elodie noted, “but getting a direct hit of it, before it diffused in the ventilation...I’m sorry, I don’t know your names-”

“Jane Foster,” Jane said. 

“Agent Romanov,” Natasha said, inspecting Elodie up and down and then glancing at Steve. He tried not to give her any tells, but that didn’t really matter with Natasha.

“Can you get a tourniquet going on both arms?” she asked, handing them stretchy fabric. “I’ll really just need one person to help, if the rest of you want to go and...do your super hero thing?”

Thor was already walking the perimeter, and Steve nodded at her and glanced at Coulson and Natasha, who had their guns at their side.

“Steve, you want to stay here with Dr. Foster and...Dr. Laurent?” Coulson said. “In case...”

“Let me know if you need anything,” Steve said, not correcting him. Coulson looked like he might cut Elodie, or whatever the expression was, if she fucked something up with Clint. Steve had seen how possessive Natasha and Clint were over Coulson as he recovered, and he assumed it went both ways.

As they left, Elodie put two IV lines in Clint’s arm. She hooked one to a large bag of saline and then used the other to quickly inject two drugs that she had found in the cabinet. “Sodium and potassium*,” she said. “And that’s a muscle relaxant, which should help with the spasms-”

“Can you counteract the whatever it is?” Steve asked. 

“We mostly have to flush it out, I think - I’m going to give him something else and it should bind to that,” Elodie said. Her demeanor was even more serious then when she was speaking about something she had discovered in the lab, and Steve had to smile. He finally understood what Tony had meant about a competence kink - or, at least ,he hoped he understood.

“Oh, fuck,” she said, and Steve turned as one of the monitors emitted a pale, high pitched flat noise that he easily recognized. Elodie immediately put her hands together and began to press against Clint’s chest. “Can you see if there’s a defibrillator?” 

“I should do CPR-”

“You’ll break his sternum,” Elodie said. She nodded over at a box. “It’s over there. And hand me that syringe I was preparing.” Steve did as he was told, and then stepped back to watch her work. She injected the syringe into one of the I.V.s, then did chest compressions again. After four or five, he monitor’s sound changed and indicated Clint had returned from a normal rhythm. “Fuck,” she said.

“You did well,” Steve said.

“Yeah, well,” Elodie replied. “Can’t exactly be the person that fucks up and kills an Avenger, eh?” 

* * 

“No. Little scientists stay here,” Hulk said, standing in the doorway and blocking the intern’s paths. Tony was pleased to see Hulk took his responsibilities seriously. Now they just needed to get him Red Cross Certified, and they could start hiring him out.

“Um, Mr. Stark? Don’t want to argue, but, I’d certainly feel a lot better if I wasn’t-” Everett began, muffled by his breathing mask.

“Sorry, kid,” Tony said, through the suit. “We’re on lockdown. You’re stuck here until the threat is contained.” 

Everett grimaced and looked at the other two, who both shrugged. Molly sat down on a chair and glanced up, a little nervous, at the Hulk. When he caught her eye she smiled at him.

“Littlest scientist afraid?” Hulk asked.

“Yeah, a little bit,” she said. “I’ve only ever been in fire drills-”

“Hulk keep safe,” Hulk said, narrowing his eyes at her.

“Of course,” Molly said, and nodded slowly at the Hulk.

“After, we smash,” Hulk said, and gave her a grin that made Tony feel a little uncomfortable - though he liked the image of Hulk and Molly running around, throwing things into a wall.

Not to mention, Tony was really pleased with this overall development - Hulk’s protectiveness towards the interns meant Bruce had to like them. Tony had suspected as much. But, with Bruce’s sarcasm and trollish nature it was difficult to tell if he was griping out of fondness, maybe even love, or if Tony’s big social experiment - help Bruce be more comfortable around people by finding a bunch of twenty-somethings with very sketchy conceptions of their own mortality, keep Steve busy and introduce him to people his own age - had failed.

Before Tony could say anything, there was a massive explosion. “Tony, this is Natasha-” came over the loud speaker, and then there was, “small...robots...with tentacles...” before her transmission dissolved into crackling.

Tony frowned and looked at Hulk.

“Hulk smash robots,” Hulk said. “Even if tiny robots no fun to smash.” 

Another interesting development, Tony thought - apparently Hulk was intelligent enough to distinguish between objects based on the quality of smashing they provided. Perhaps they had underestimated the big fellow.

“Yeah, those do have tentacles,” Jack said, and Tony turned to see several small orb shaped robots with tentacled arms whirl and hiss into the room. He shot a repulser at one of them and it dodged it at the last minute. Hulk lumbered after another, and while Tony was mostly paying attention to his own robot annihilation quest, he couldn’t help but think that the Hulk looked an awful lot like a cat getting a toy dangled in front of it, not entirely realizing that whatever was operating the toy was just that little bit smarter.

Any adorable images were soon circumvented when it became clear that the first few robots were probes for much larger, similarly structured spheres - with even more tentacles. “Oh, shit!” Molly said, and ducked behind a shower curtain. 

One of the larger robot’s tentacles wrapped around Everett’s arm and the robots revealed that, while small, they were strong. “What the fuck!” Everett said.

Tony shot another beam to try and sever the tentacle and got another one whipped in his face for his trouble. The force was enough to turn him around, and he saw the Hulk finally catching the smaller robot he’d been pursuing and then throwing it at a larger one. 

Tony turned and grabbed a hold of the tentacle that was dragging Everett towards the open window where the robots had entered. He had to use both hands to break it, and Everett tumbled to the floor. “Thanks,” he said.

“Hide,” Tony said, and Everett nodded at him.

Molly shrieked, then, and Tony saw that she had one of the smaller robots herding her into a corner. Tony was about to fly over to intercede when Jack hit it with a fire extinguisher. “Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!” he said, and while a little too pleased with himself, Tony could understand the impetus - he was pretty surprised Jack could wield the fire extinguisher so easily. Those fuckers were heavy.

“Again, hide,” he said, and the other two nodded at him and moved underneath a desk - thankfully, they were the two smallest, so they fit. 

“Don’t piss them off...” Coulson said, over the comm, “they’ve got more of that-” he then began to cough, and Tony shook his head. Hulk seemed to have got a good handle on how to smash them - and, thankfully, when sprayed in the face, he just got angrier - so Tony grabbed one of the robots that had been downed and looked into it, hoping to find out how they were controlled.

“Hey,” he said, in the direction of the hidden interns, “any of you know anything about robots?” 

“I built a robot for a science project once,” Everett said, and Jack and Molly poked their heads out of the desk.

“Stay out of the way - but see what you can make of this,” Tony said, and he tossed one of the robots at them before heading in the direction of the Hulk, who was nearly out the window - presumably to locate whoever thought they would gas and capture the Avengers on a Wednesday afternoon. 

“You outside yet?” Steve asked, over the comm. “I could use a ride.”

“Don’t I know it,” Tony replied, and flew up to meet Steve at the penthouse. “How’s Barton?” he asked as he wrapped an arm around him.

“Stable. Elodie’s got things under control, I think, and I left Jane with her just in case she needed help..."

Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes later, as he battled the mercenary force that had come along with the kidnapping robot spheres, Tony grinned when JARVIS patched him through to Jack. “Mr. Stark, we’ve managed to hack into the server,” he said. “We think we can disable them - but it might go very badly, so-”

“Do it,” Tony said, and his grin widened as all of the robots stopped in midair and then fell from the sky. And who said interns were just lazy good for nothings looking for free corporate lunches? “Well done, kids. You are all definitely getting job offers.” 

“Seriously?” Everett asked back - and really? You didn’t joke about that thing in the midst of an invasion by a moderately sized group of mercenaries and their robot henchmen.

“Yes,” Tony said. “But we’ll talk more after we take out these mercenaries.”

“You are not so tough now without your spherical, cephalopod friends, are you?” Thor demanded. Prior to the robots deactivation he had been using Mjolnir on them like a baseball bat, and Tony couldn’t help but feel Thor was a little disappointed that that portion of the fight was over.

Thor’s assessment was largely accurate. It only took a few more minutes to corral the rest of the mercenaries, pick up the larger pieces of robot debris for analysis, and hand the rest of the mess over to the local authorities. Tony posed for a few pictures for the press before jetting off to find Bruce, who had located a suitably out of the way alley for his transformation. Tony handed him the emergency shorts that Steve always made sure to carry in one of his pooches, which were, much to everyone’s amusement, very stretchy and spandex.

“I don’t really see,” Bruce said, struggling into them, “how these offer a greater benefit than my being naked.”

“It’s mostly a propriety thing,” Tony said, and he flipped his visor up to get a better view of Bruce bent over, hopping slightly as he tried to pull the shorts over his ass. “Covered, we’re PG-13 - you let you Little Big Guy Lose and we’re probably NC-17, maybe R, but only if it’s not erect.”

Bruce turned, having finally got into the shorts. He shook his head and winced at Tony. “Little Big Guy?” 

“I just got dosed with a strong neuro-toxin,” Tony said. “Maybe my mental faculties are not completely up to snuff.”

“Is that what that was?” Bruce asked, and Tony reached around his waist to carry him back up to the Tower. “There was this hissing sound, and one of the interns - I think Molly - started coughing and sort of shivering, and the next thing I know I can feel him under my skin, protesting-” 

“We’re not sure, exactly, but the resident biochemist and medical student thinks it’s a neuro-paralytic,” Tony said. He deposited Bruce in Tony’s workshop. “You’d be proud of your little band of misfits - Clint took a huge hit of the gas since he was lurking in the vent system, and, hopefully, this will be a little PSA-moment for him. Elodie apparently got him stabilized. Jack hit one of the robot things with a fire extinguisher, and then he, Molly, and Ev figured out how to hack the robot’s systems - it wasn’t particularly complex, but they’re not computer programmers, so they can get extra credit-” As he spoke, Tony stood and allowed the suit to be dismantled.

“Huh,” Bruce said, and he ran his hand through his hair. “Remember those pants, I left here, the other night?”

“No.”

“Yes you do - remember, when-”

“Oh, yes, _those,_ ” Tony said, grinning - and, hey! They had not yet had the opportunity to have post-battle victory sex yet, so here was another first. Even if it wasn’t the most challenging of battles. He wiggled his eyebrows at Bruce in what he hoped was a suggestive manner.

“Where are they? Because I’d like to be G-rated when I actually see the interns-”

“Are you kidding, Bruce? With what you’ve got between your legs you’ll always be PG.” Bruce rolled his eyes at him. Tony reached into his desk drawer and tossed the plants in question in Bruce’s direction. “Of course, you don’t need to put them on right-”

“Yes, you do,” Steve said, appearing in the doorway - Captain America, the country’s best cock block. “We’ve all got to go into SHIELD for testing.”

“Oh, fuck that,” Tony said, and Steve just shook his head at him. 

* * 

Much to Tony’s chagrin, it wasn’t just the routine SHIELD testing they were used to for alien goo and other normal battle resultant fluids. Instead, there were blood tests and electrodes that attached them to beeping machines and plenty of poking and prodding in an effort to see how the chemical had affected each of them. 

While they sat in hospital scrubs - clothes long ago confiscated - all lined up in gurneys in the massive containment ward only SHIELD would deem practical to build, Jack was the first of the interns to speak since they had arrived. “Um, Mr. Stark?” 

Tony raised his eyebrows at him - for the first few minutes since they were each stripped, showered, and otherwise decontaminated and shoved in a room together the interns had largely been awkward and starstruck, either over the Avengers - Elodie and Molly kept glancing at Natasha and looking away when she caught them - or, in Everett’s case, Jane Foster.

“Yes, Jack,” Tony said.

“Are you really going to hire us?” 

Bruce and Steve looked at Tony - and, really? Like they were going to object, at this point. Tony didn’t want to hear it, since it was clear after today they also had a fondness for the interns. Not to mention that the two of them should have certain feelings of pride - they had taken four of the intern program’s problem children and turned them into ideal Stark Industry employees.

“Yes,” Tony said. “In addition to your stellar academics, you’ve shown real skill at dealing with the issues you’ll regularly face at S.I. - robot invasions, gassings, the Hulk, Steve’s need to account for _all of the pens-_ ” Steve shook his head. “And, hey, today we learned you can really think on your feet. And that Hulk likes all of you enough that he dragged you to safety-”

“Aye, he would not perform such an act for myself,” Thor said, and Bruce frowned.

“So, yes, I’ll hire you. When you’re done with school, because you do need those phDs in whatever the hell you’re getting them in,” Tony said. 

“Do we get hazard pay?” Everett asked, glancing around the room. “What? Just curious, considering-”

“Oh, fuck off,” Elodie said, and then glanced over at Steve, who was seated next to her. 

“Oh, you’re the intern,” Natasha said, voice a little slurred from the painkillers that had been administered to her - she had cracked several ribs in battle. She looked over at Clint and shrugged. “What? I thought it was the other one - you never like women who are taller than you.” 

Clint was fairly high from the combination of pure oxygen he was inhaling through small plastic tubing in his nostrils and some kind of muscle relaxant they’d given him in an effort to counteract some of the paralytic's effects. He looked at Natasha with half hooded eyes and said, “She’s not-”

“Clint, no,” Coulson said. "Just no."

Tony looked away from the conversation and towards the interns, who were all smiling at one another. He felt his heart grow a size or two - here he was, making the dreams of young people a reality. And likely really pissing off Melinda the internship coordinator, who had probably had these four marked for thanks but no thanks letters at the end of the summer. He was confident he could find some capable but boring people to cut. 

“Is it true?” Thor asked, pulling Tony out of his train of thought. “If you are romantically involved you should show some form of affection.” Thor and Jane had pushed their beds together, and Jane was curled into Thor as best she could be considering the various monitors she was hooked up to. 

“Hold her hand,” Clint said, grinning slightly.

“Wait, what?” Everett asked, and Elodie turned and stuck her tongue out at him. 

_Seriously,_ Tony thought, leaning back and hoping the nurse he had bribed into giving him some percocet would arrive soon, _everyone acts like it is so hard to work in HR..._ but look what he’d accomplished over the space of a summer internship? He was going to have to tell Pepper he needed a certificate of achievement, in the very least.


End file.
